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THE SAINT'S TKAGEDY. 



THE 

SAINT'S TRAGEDY: 

OK, 

THE TRUE STORY OF ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY, 

LANDGRAVINE OF THURINGIA, 
SAINT OF THE ROMISH CALENDAR. 

BY 

CHARLES KINGSLEY, Junior, 

RECTOR OF EVERSLEY. 
WITH 

A PREFACE BY PROFESSOR MAURICE. 

SECOND EDITION. 



LONDON: 
J. W. PARKER & SON, WEST STRAND. 

MDCCCLI. 






fyu* %.¥' /T*7 






PREFACE, 

BY THE 

REV. F. D- MAURICE, M.A. 



rPHE writer of this play does not differ with his 
countrymen generally, as to the nature and 
requirements of a Drama. He has learnt from our 
Great Masters that it should exhibit human beings 
engaged in some earnest struggle, certain outward 
aspects of which may possibly be a spectacle for the 
amusement of idlers, but which in itself is for the 
study and the sympathy of those who are struggling 
themselves. A Drama, he feels, should not aim at 
the inculcation of any definite maxim ; the moral of 
it lies in the action and the character. It must be 
drawn out of them by the heart and experience of 
the reader, not forced upon him by the author. 
The men and women whom he presents are not to 
be his spokesmen; they are to utter themselves 
freely in such language, grave or mirthful, as best 
expresses what they feel and what they are. The 
age to which they belong is neither to be contem- 
plated as if* it were apart from us, nor is it to be 



vi PREFACE. 

measured by our rules, neither to be held up as a model, 
nor to be condemned for its strangeness. The pas- 
sions which worked in it must be those which are 
working in ourselves. To the same eternal laws 
and principles are we, .and it, amenable. By be- 
holding these a poet is to raise himself, and may 
hope to raise his readers, above antiquarian tastes 
and modern conventions. The unity of the play 
cannot be conferred upon it by any artificial arrange- 
ments; it must depend upon the relation of the 
different persons and events to the central subject. 
No nice adjustments of success and failure to right 
and wrong must constitute its poetical justice. In 
some deeper way than this, if at all, must the con- 
science of the readers be satisfied that there is an 
order in the universe, and that the poet has 
perceived and asserted it. 

Long before these principles were reduced into 
formal canons of orthodoxy, even while they en- 
countered the strong opposition of critics, they 
were unconsciously recognised by Englishmen as 
sound and national. Yet I question whether" a 
clergyman writing in conformity with them anight I 
not have incurred censure in former times, and may 
not incur it now. The privilege of expressing his 
own thoughts, sufferings, sympathies, in any form 
of verse is easily conceded to him ; if he liked to 
use a dialogue instead of a monologue, for the pur- 
pose of enforcing a duty, or illustrating a doctrine, 
no one would find fault with him ; if he produced 



PREFACE. vii 

an actual Drama for the purpose of defending or 
denouncing a particular character, or period, or 
system of opinions, the compliments of one party 
might console him for the abuse or contempt of 
another. 

But it seems to be supposed that he is bound to 
keep in view one or other of these ends : while to 
divest himself of his own individuality that he may 
enter into the working of other spirits ; to lay aside 
the authority which pronounces one opinion, or one 
habit of mind, to be right and another wrong, that 
he may exhibit them in their actual strife; to deal 
with questions, not in an abstract shape, but mixed 
up with the affections, passions, relations of human 
creatures — is a course which must lead him, it is 
thought, into a great forgetfulness of his office, and 
of all that is involved in it. 

No one can have less interest than I have in 
claiming poetical privileges for the clergy ; and no 
one, I believe, is more thoroughly convinced that 
the standard which society prescribes for us, and to 
which we ordinarily conform ourselves, instead of 
being too severe and lofty, is far too secular and 
grovelling. But I apprehend the limitations of this 
kind which are imposed upon us are themselves ex- 
ceedingly secular, betokening an entire misconcep- 
tion of the nature of our work, proceeding from 
maxims and habits which tend to make it utterly 
insignificant and abortive. If a man confines him- 
self to the utterance of his own experiences, those 



vm PREFACE. 

experiences are likely to become every day more 
narrow and less real. If he confines himself to the 
defence of certain propositions, he is sure gradually 
to lose all sense of the connexion between those 
propositions and his own life, or the life of man. 
In either case he becomes utterly ineffectual as a 
teacher. Those whose education and character are 
different from his own, whose processes of mind 
have therefore been different, are utterly unintelli- 
gible to him. Even a cordial desire for sympathy 
is not able to break through the prickly hedge of 
habits, notions, and technicalities, which separates 
them. Oftentimes the desire itself is extinguished 
in those who ought to cherish it most, by the fear 
of meeting with something portentous or dangerous. 
Nor can he defend a dogma better than he com- 
munes with men; for he knows not that which 
attacks it. He supposes it to be a set of book 
arguments, whereas it is something lying very deep 
in the heart of the disputant, into which he has 
never penetrated. 

Hence there is a general complaint that we f are 
ignorant of the thoughts and feelings of our contem- 
poraries ' most attribute this to a fear of looking 
below the surface, lest we should find hollowness 
within ; many like to have it so, because they have 
thus an excuse for despising us. But surely such 
an ignorance is more inexcusable in us, than in the 
priests of any nation : we, less than any, are kept 
from the sun and air ; our discipline is less than any 



PREFACE. ix 

contrived merely to make us acquainted with the 
common-places of divinity. We are enabled, nay, 
obliged, from our youth upwards, to mix with people 
of our own age, who are destined for all occupations 
and modes of life ; to share in their studies, their 
enjoyments, their perplexities, their temptations. 
Experience, often so dearly bought, is surely not 
meant to be thrown away: whether it has been 
obtained without the sacrifice of that which is most 
precious, or whether the lost blessing has been 
restored twofold, and good is understood, not only 
as the opposite of evil, but as the deliverance from 
it, we cannot be meant to forget all that we have 
been learning. The teachers of other nations may 
reasonably mock us, as having less of direct book- 
lore than themselves; they should not be able to 
say, that we are without the compensation of know- 
ing a little more of living creatures. 

A clergyman, it seems to me, should be better 
able than other men to cast aside that which is 
merely accidental, either in his own character, or in 
the character of the age to which he belongs, and to 
apprehend that which is essential and eternal. His 
acceptance of fixed creeds, which belong as much to 
one generation as another, and which have survived 
amid all changes and convulsions, should raise him 
especially above the temptation to exalt the fashion 
of his own time, or of any past one; above the 
affectation of the obsolete, above slavery to the 
present, and above that strange mixture of both 

A3 



x PREFACE. 

which some display, who weep because the beautiful 
visions of the Past are departed, and admire them- 
selves for being able to weep over them — and dis- 
pense with them. His reverence for the Bible 
should make him feel that we most realize our own 
personality when we most connect it with that of 
our fellow-men; that acts are not to be contem- 
plated apart from the actor ; that more of what is 
acceptable to the God of Truth may come forth in 
men striving with infinite confusion, and often utter- 
ing words like the east-wind, than in those who can 
discourse calmly and eloquently about a righteous- 
ness and mercy which they know only by hearsay. 
The belief which a minister of God has in the eter- 
nity of the distinction between right and wrong 
should especially dispose him to recognise that dis- 
tinction apart from mere circumstance and opinion. 
The confidence which he must have that the life of 
each man, and the life of this world, is a drama, in 
which a perfectly Good and True Being is unveiling 
His own purposes, and carrying on a conflict with 
evil, which must issue in complete victory, should 
make him eager to discover in every portion ofhis- 
tory, in every biography, a divine 'Morality' and 
e Mystery 5 — a morality, though it deals with no 
abstract personages — a mystery, though the subject 
of it be the doings of the most secular men. 

The subject of this Play is certainly a dangerous 
one. It suggests questions which are deeply inte- 
resting at the present time. It involves the whole 



PREFACE. xi 

character and spirit of the Middle Ages. A person 
who had not an enthusiastic admiration for the 
character of Elizabeth would not be worthy to speak 
of her ; it seems to me, that he would be still less 
worthy, if he did not admire far more fervently that 
ideal of the female character which God has esta- 
blished, and not man — which she imperfectly 
realized — which often exhibited itself in her in spite 
of her own more confused, though apparently more 
lofty, ideal ; which may be manifested more simply, 
and therefore more perfectly, in the England of the 
nineteenth century, than in the Germany of the 
thirteenth. To enter into the meaning of self-sacri- 
fice — to sympathise with any one who aims at it — 
not to be misled by counterfeits of it — not to be 
unjust to the truth which may be mixed with those 
counterfeits — is a difficult task, but a necessary one 
for any one who takes this work in hand. How far 
our author has attained these ends, others must 
decide. I am sure that he will not have failed from 
forgetting them. He has, I believe, faithfully 
studied i U the documents of the period within his 
reach, making little use of modern narratives ; he 
has meditated upon the past in its connexion with 
the present; has never allowed his reading to 
become dry by disconnecting it with what he has 
seen and felt, or made his partial experiences a 
measure for the acts which they help him to under- 
stand. He has entered upon his work at least in a 
true and faithful spirit, not regarding it as an 



xii PREFACE. 

amusement for leisure hours, but as something to 
be done seriously, if done at all; as if he was as 
much c under the Great Taskmaster's eye' in this 
as in any other duty of his calling. In certain pas- 
sages and scenes he seemed to me to have been a 
little too bold for the taste and temper of this age. 
But having written them deliberately, from a con- 
viction that morality is in peril from fastidiousness, 
and that it is not safe to look at questions which 
are really agitating people's hearts merely from the 
outside — he has, and I believe rightly, retained 
what I should from cowardice have wished him to 
exclude. I have no doubt, that any one who wins 
a victory over the fear of opinion, and especially 
over the opinion of the religious world, strengthens 
his own moral character, and acquires a greater 
fitness for his high service. 

Whether Poetry is again to revive among us, or 
whether the power is to be wholly stifled by our 
accurate notions about the laws and conditions 
under which it is to be exercised, is a question upon 
which there is room for great differences of opinion. 
Judging from the past, I should suppose thaf till 
Poetry becomes less self-conscious, less self-concen- 
trated, more dramatical in spirit, if not in form, it 
will not have the qualities which can powerfully 
affect Englishmen. Not only were the Poets of our 
most national age dramatists, but there seems an 
evident dramatical tendency in those who wrote 
what we are wont to call narrative, or epic, poems. 



PREFACE. xiii 

Take away the dramatic faculty from Chaucer, and 
the Canterbury Tales become indeed, what they 
have been most untruly called, mere versions of 
French or Italian Fables. Milton may have been 
right in changing the form of Paradise Lost, — we 
are bound to believe that he was right ; for what 
appeal can there be against his genius? But he 
could not destroy the essentially dramatic character 
of a work which sets forth the battle between good 
and evil, and the Will of Man at once the Theatre 
and the Prize of the conflict. Is it not true, that 
there is in the very substance of the English mind, 
that which naturally predisposes us to sympathy 
with the Drama, and this though we are perhaps 
the most untheatrical of all people ? The love of 
action, the impatience of abstraction, the equity 
which leads us to desire that every one may have a 
fair hearing, the reserve which had rather detect 
personal experience than have it announced — ten- 
dencies all easily perverted to evil, often leading to 
results the most contradictory, yet capable of the 
noblest cultivation, seem to explain the fact, that 
writers of this kind should have flourished so greatly 
among us, and that scarcely any others should per- 
manently interest us. 

These remarks do not concern poetical literature 
alone, or chiefly. Those habits of mind, of which I 
have spoken, ought to make us the best historians. 
If Germany has a right to claim the whole realm of 
the abstract, if Frenchmen understand the frame- 



xiv PREFACE. 

work of society better than we do, there is in the 
national dramas of Shakspeare an historical secret, 
which neither the philosophy of the one nor the 
acute observation of the other can discover. Yet 
these dramas are almost the only satisfactory expres- 
sion of that historical faculty which I believe is 
latent in us. The zeal of our factions, a result of 
our national activity, has made earnest history dis- 
honest : our English justice has fled to indifferent 
and sceptical writers for the impartiality which it 
sought in vain elsewhere. This resource has failed, 
— the indifferentism of Hume could not secure him 
against his Scotch prejudices, or against gross unfair- 
ness when anything disagreeably positive and vehe- 
ment came in his way. Moreover, a practical people 
demand movement and life, not mere judging and 
balancing. Eor a time there was a reaction in favonr 
of party history, but it could not last long ; already 
we are glad to seek in Hanke or Michelet that 
which seems denied us at home. Much, no doubt, 
may be gained from such sources; but I am con- 
vinced that tKis is not the produce which we. are 
meant generally to import; for this we may trust 
to well-directed native industry. The time is, I 
hope, at hand, when those who are most in earnest 
will feel that therefore they are most bound to be 
just — when they will confess the exceeding wicked- 
ness of the desire to distort or suppress a fact, or 
misrepresent a character — when they will ask as 



PREFACE. xv 

solemnly to be delivered from the temptation to 
this, as to any crime which is punished by law. 

The clergy ought especially to lead the way in 
this reformation. They have erred grievously in 
perverting history to their own purposes. What 
was a sin in others was in them a blasphemy, because 
they professed to acknowledge God as the Ruler of 
the world, and hereby they showed that they valued 
their own conclusions above the facts which reveal 
His order. They owe, therefore, a great amende 
to their country, and they should consider seriously 
how they can make it most effectually. I look upon 
this Play as an effort in this direction, which I trust 
may be followed by many more. On this ground 
alone, even if its poetical worth was less than I 
believe it is, I should, as a clergyman, be thankful 
for its publication. 

E. D. M. 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE story which I have here put into a dramatic 
form is one familiar to Romanists, and perfectly 
and circumstantially authenticated. Abridged ver- 
sions of it, carefully softened and sentimentalized, may 
be read in any Romish collection of Lives of the Saints. 
An enlarged edition has been published in France, I 
believe by Count Montalembert, and translated, with 
illustrations, by an English gentleman. From con- 
sulting this work I have hitherto abstained, in order 
that I might draw my facts and opinions, entire and 
unbiassed, from the original Biography of Elizabeth, 
by Dietrich of Appold, her contemporary, as given 
entire by Canisius. 

Dietrich was born in Thuringia, near the scene of 
Elizabeth's labours, a few years before her death, had 
conversed with those who had seen her, and calls to 
witness 'God and the elect angels, that he had in- 
serted nothing but what he had either understood from 
religious and veracious persons, or read in approved 
writings, viz., ' The Booh of ilie Sayings of Elizabeth's 
Four Ladies. (Guta, Isentrudis, and two others.)' 'The 
Letter which Conrad of Marjpurg, her Director, wrote to 
Pope Gregory the Ninth.' (These two documents still 
exist.) ' The Sermon of Otto,' (de Or dine Prcedic.) 
'which begins thus, Midierem fortem.' 



xviii INTRODUCTION. 

' Xot satisfied with these, ' he ( visited monasteries, 
castles, and towns, interrogated the most aged and 
veracious persons, and wrote letters, seeking for com- 
pleteness and truth in all things ;' and thus composed 
his biography, from which that in Surius (Acta Sanc- 
torum), Jacobus de Yoragine, Alban Butler, and all 
others which I have seen, are copied with a very few 
additions and many prudent omissions. 

Wishing to adhere strictly to historical truth, I have 
followed the received account, not only in the incidents, 
but often in the language which it attributes to its 
various characters ; and have given in the Notes all 
necessary references to, the biography in Canisius's 
collection. My part has therefore been merely to show 
how the conduct of my heroine was not only possible, 
but to. a certain degree necessary, for a character of 
earnestness and piety such as hers, working under the 
influences of the Middle Age. 

In deducing fairly, from the phenomena of her life, 
the character of Elizabeth, she necessarily became a 
type of two great mental struggles of the Middle Age ; 
first, of that between Scriptural or unconscious, and 
Popish or conscious, purity : in a word, between inno- 
cence and prudery; next, of the struggle between 
healthy human affection, and the Manichean contempt 
with which a celibate clergy would have all men regard 
the names of husband, wife, and parent. To exhibit 
this latter falsehood in its miserable consequences, 
when received into a heart of insight and determina- 
tion sufficient to follow out all belief to its ultimate 
practice, is the main object of my Poem. That a most 
degrading and agonizing contradiction on these points 



INTRODUCTION. xix 

must have existed in the mind of Elizabeth, and of all 
who with similar characters shall have found them- 
selves under similar influences, is a necessity that 
must be evident to all who know anything of the 
deeper affections of men. In the idea of a married 
Romish saint, these miseries should follow logically 
from the Romish view of human relations. In Eliza- 
beth's case their existence is proved equally logically 
from the acknowledged facts of her conduct. 

I may here observe, that if I have in no case made 
her allude to the Virgin Mary, and exhibited the sense 
of infinite duty and loyalty to Christ alone, as the 
mainspring of all her noblest deeds, it is merely in 
accordance with Dietrich's biography. The omission 
of all Mariolatry is remarkable. My business is to 
copy that omission, as I should in the opposite case 
have copied the introduction of Virgin- worship into 
the original tale. The business of those who make 
Mary, to women especially, the complete substitute for 
the Saviour, — I had almost said, for all Three Persons 
of the Trinity, is to explain, if they can, her non- 
appearance in this case. 

Lewis, again, I have drawn as I found him, possessed 
of all virtues but those of action ; in knowledge, in 
moral courage, in spiritual attainment, infinitely in- 
ferior to his wife, and depending on her to be taught 
to pray ; giving her higher faculties nothing to rest on 
in himself, and leaving the noblest offices of a husband 
to be supplied by a spiritual director. He thus becomes 
a type of the husbands of the Middle Age, and of the 
woman-worship of chivalry. Woman-worship, ' the 
honour due to the weaker vessel/ is indeed of God, 



xx INTRODUCTION. 

and woe to the nation and to the man in whom it dies. 
But in the Middle Age, this feeling had no religious 
root, by which it could connect itself rationally, either 
with actual wedlock or with the noble yearnings of 
men's spirits, and it therefore could not but die down 
into a semi-sensual dream of female-saint -worship, or 
fantastic idolatry of mere physical beauty, leaving the 
women themselves an easy prey to the intellectual 
allurements of the more educated and subtle priest- 
hood. 

In Conrad's case, again, I have fancied that I dis- 
cover in the various notices of his life, a noble nature 
warped and blinded by its unnatural exclusions from 
those family ties through which we first discern or 
describe God and our relations to Him, and forced to 
concentrate his whole faculties in the service, not so 
much of a God of Truth as of a Catholic system. In 
his character will be found, I hope, some implicit 
apology for the failings of such truly great men as Dun- 
stan, Becket, and Dominic, and of many more whom, 
if we hate, we shall never understand, while we shall 
be but too likely, in our own way, to copy them. 

Walter of Varila, a more fictitious character, repre- 
sents the ' healthy animalism' of the Teutonic mind, 
with its mixture of deep earnestness and hearty merri- 
ment. His dislike of priestly sentimentalities is no 
anachronism. Even in his day, a noble lay- religion, 
founded on faith in the divine and universal symbolism 
of humanity and nature, was gradually arising, and 
venting itself, from time to time, as I conceive, through 
many most unsuspected channels, through chivalry, 
through the minne- singers, through the lay-inventors, 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

or rather importers, of pointed architecture, through 
the German school of painting, through the politics of 
the free-towns, till it attained complete freedom, in 
Luther and his associate reformers. 

For my fantastic quotations of Scripture, if they 
shall be deemed irreverent, I can only say, that they 
were the fashion of the time, from prince to peasant — 
that there is scarcely one of them, with which I have 
not actually met in the writings of the period — that 
those writings abound with misuse of Scripture, far 
more coarse, arbitrary, and ridiculous, than any which 
I have dared to insert — that I had no right to omit so 
radical a characteristic of the Middle Age. 

For the more coarse and homely passages with 
which the drama is interspersed, I must make the 
same apology. I put them there because they were 
there — because the Middle Age was, in the gross, a 
coarse, barbarous, and profligate age — because it was 
necessary, in order to bring out fairly, the beauty of 
the central character, to show • the crooked and per- 
verse generation,' in which she was ' a child of God 
without rebuke.' It was, in fact, the very ferocity 
and foulness of the time which by a natural revulsion, 
called forth at the same time, the apostolic holiness, 
and the Manichean asceticism, of the Medieval Saints. 
The world was so bad, that to be Saints at all, they 
were compelled to go out of the world. It was neces- 
sary, moreover, in depicting the poor man's patroness, 
to show the material on which she worked ; and those 
who know the poor, know also that we can no more 
judge truly of their characters in the presence of their 
benefactors, than we can tell by seeing clay in the 



xxii INTRODUCTION. 

potter's hands, what it was in its native pit. These 
scenes have, therefore been laid principally in Eliza- 
beth's absence,, in order to preserve their only use and 
meaning. 

So rough and common life a picture of the Middle 
Age will, I am afraid, whether faithful or not, be far 
from acceptable, to those who take their notions of 
that period principally from such exquisite dreams as 
the fictions of Fouque, and of certain moderns whose 
graceful minds, like some enchanted well, 

In whose calm depths the pure and beautiful 
Alone are mirrored, 

are, on account of their very sweetness and simplicity, 
singularly unfitted to convey any true likeness of the 
coarse and stormy Middle Age. I have been already 
accused, by others than Romanists, of profaning this 
whole subject — i. e. of telling the whole truth, pleasant 
or not, about it. But really, time enough has been 
lost in ignorant abuse of that period, and time enough, 
also, lately, in blind adoration of it. "When shall we 
learn to see it as it was ? — the dawning manhood of 
Europe — rich with all the tenderness, the simplicity, 
the enthusiasm of youth — but also darkened, alas ! 
with its full share of youth's precipitance and extrava- 
gance, fierce passions, and blind self-will — its virtues 
and its vices colossal, and for that very reason, always 
haunted by the twin-imp of the colossal — the carica- 
tured. 

Lastly, the many miraculous stories which the 
biographer of Elizabeth relates of her, I had no right, 
for the sake of truth, to interwe'ave in the plot, while 
it was necessary to indicate, at least, their existence. 



INTRODUCTION. xxiii 

I have, therefore, put such of them as seemed least 
absurd into the mouth of Conrad, to whom, in fact, 
they owe their original publication, and have done so, 
as I hope, not without a just ethical purpose. 

Such was my idea : of the inconsistencies and short- 
comings of this its realization, no one can ever be so 
painfully sensible, as I am already myself. If, how- 
ever, this book shall cause one Englishman honestly to 
ask himself, 'I, as a Protestant, have been accus- 
tomed to assert the purity and dignity of the offices of 
husband, wife, and parent. Have I ever examined 
the grounds of my own assertion ? Do I believe them 
to be as callings from God, spiritual, sacramental, 
divine, eternal ? Or am I at heart regarding and 
using them, like the Papist, merely as heaven's indul- 
gences to the infirmities of fallen man?' — Then will 
my book have done its work. 

If, again, it shall deter one young man from the 
example of those miserable dilettanti, who in books 
and sermons are whimpering meagre second-hand 
praises of celibacy, — depreciating as carnal and de- 
grading those family ties, to which they owe their own 
existence, in the enjoyment of which they themselves 
all the while unblushingly indulge — insulting thus 
their own wives and mothers, — nibbling ignorantly at 
the very root of that household purity, which consti- 
tutes the distinctive superiority of Protestant over 
Popish nations : — again my book will have done its 
work. 

If, lastly, it shall awaken one pious Protestant to 
recognise, in some, at least, of the Saints of the Middle 
Age, beings not only of the same passions, but of the 



xxiv INTRODUCTION. 

same Lord, the same faith, the same baptism, as 
themselves, Protestants, not the less deep and true, 
because utterly unconscious and practical — mighty 
witnesses against the two antichrists of their age — the 
tyranny of feudal caste, and the phantoms which 
Popery substitutes for the living Christ — then also 
will my little book indeed have done its work. 



THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 



CHARACTERS. 



Vassals of Lewis. 



Elizabeth, daughter of the King of Hungary. 

Leavis, Landgrave of Thuringia, betrothed to her in 

childhood. 
Henry, brother of Lewis. 
"Walter, of Varila, \ 
Rudolf, the Cupbearer, 
Leutolf, of Erlstetten, 
Hartwig, of Erba, 
Count Hugo, 
Count of Satm, &c. 
Conrad, of Marpurg, a MojiIc, the Eope's Commissioner 

for the suppression of heresy. 
Gerard, his Chaplain. 

Bishop of Bamberg, uncle of Elizabeth, fyc. fyc. 
Sophia, Dowager Landgravine. 
Agnes, her daughter, sister of Lewis. 
Isentrudis, Elizabeth's nurse. 
Guta, her favourite maiden. 

&"c. &c. &c. 



The Scene lies principally in Eisenach, and the Wart- 
burg; changing afterwards to Bamberg, and finally to 
Marpurg. 



PROEM. 



(Epimetheus.) 



Wake again, Teutonic Father-ages, 
Speak again, beloved primaeval creeds ; 

Flash ancestral spirit from your pages, 
Wake the greedy age to noble deeds. 



Tell us, how of old our saintly mothers 

Schooled themselves by vigil, fast, and prayer ; 

Learnt to love as Jesus loved before them, 

While they bore the cross which poor men bear. 

ni. 

Tell us how our stout crusading fathers 

Fought and died for God, and not for gold ; 

Let their love, their faith, their boyish daring, 
Distance-mellowed, gild the days of old. 



Tell us how the sexless workers, thronging, 
Angel-tended, round the convent doors, 

Wrought to Christian faith and holy order 
Savage hearts alike and barren moors. 



Ye who built the churches where we worship, 
Ye who framed the laws by which we move, 

Fathers, long belied, and long forsaken, 
Oh ! forgive the children of your love ! 
B 2 



PROEM. 



(Pkometheus.) 



Speak ! but ask us not to be as ye were ! 

All but God is changing day by day. 
He who breathes on man the plastic spirit, 

Bids us mould ourselves its robe of clay. 



Old anarchic floods of revolution, 

Drowning ill and good alike in night, 

Sink, and bear the wrecks of ancient labour, 
Fossil-teeming, to the searching light ! 

III. 

There will we find laws, which shall interpret, 
Through the simpler past, existing life ; 

Delving up from mines and fairy caverns 
Charmed blades, to cut the age's strife. 

IV. 

What though fogs may stream from draining waters ? 

"We will till the clays to mellow loam ; 
Wake the grave-yard of our father's spirits ; 

Clothe its crumbling mounds with blade and bloom. 

- V. 

Old decays but foster new creations ; 

Bones and ashes feed the golden corn ; 
Fresh elixirs wander every moment, 

Down the veins through which the live past feeds 
its child, the live unborn. 



THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 



ACT I. 

Scene I. a.d. 1220. 



TJie Doorway of a closed Chapel in the Wartburg. 
Elizabeth sitting on the Steps. 

Eliz, Baby Jesus, who dost lie 
Fa,r above that stormy sky, 
In Thy mother's pure caress, 
Stoop and save the motherless. 

Happy birds ! whom Jesus leaves 
Underneath his sheltering eaves ; 
There they go to play and sleep, 
May not I go in to weep ? 

All without is mean and small, 
All within is vast and tall ; 
All without is harsh and shrill, 
All within is hushed and still. 

Jesus, let me enter in, 
Wrap me safe from noise and sin ; 
Let me list the angels' songs, 
See the picture of Thy wrongs ; 

Let me kiss Thy wounded feet, 
Drink Thine incense, faint and sweet, 
While the clear bells call Thee down 
From Thine everlasting throne. 



30 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY [act i. 

At Thy door-step low I bend, 
Who have neither kin nor friend ; 
Let me here a shelter find, 
Shield the shorn lamb from the wind. 

Jesu, Lord, my heart will break, 
Save me for Thy great love's sake ! 

Enter Isentrudis. 

Isen. Aha ! I had missed my little bird from the 
nest, 
And judged that she was here. "What's this ? fie, tears ? 

Eliz. Go ! you despise me like the rest. 

Isen. Despise you ? 

What's here? King Andrew's child? St. John's 

sworn maid ? 
Who dares despise you ? Out upon these Saxons ! 
They sang another note when I was younger, 
When from the rich East came my queenly pearl, 
Lapt on this fluttering heart, while mighty heroes" 
Rode by her side, and far behind us stretched 
The barbs and sumpter mules, a royal train, 
Laden with silks and furs, and priceless gems, 
Wedges of gold, and furniture of silver, 
Fit for my princess. 

Eliz. Hush now, I've heard all, nurse, 

A thousand times. 

Isen. Oh, how their hungry mouths 

Did water at the booty f Such a prize, 
Since the three Kings came wandering into Coin, 
They ne'er saw, nor their fathers ; — well they knew it ! 
Oh, how they fawned on us ! " Great Isentrudis !" 
" Sweet babe !" The Landgravine did thank her saints 
As if you, or your silks, had fallen from heaven ; 
And now she wears your furs, and calls us gipsies. 
Come tell your nurse your griefs $ we'll weep together, 
Strangers in this strange land ! 

Eliz. I am most friendless. 

The Landgravine and Agnes — you may see them 



scene I.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 31 

Begrudge the food I eat, and call me friend 

Of knaves and serving maids ; the burly knights 

Freeze me with cold blue eyes : no saucy page 

But points and whispers, " There goes our pet nun ; 

Would but her saintship leave her gold behind, 

"We'd give herself her furlough." Save me ! save me ! 

All here are ghastly dreams ; dead masks of stone, 

And you and I, and Guta, only live : 

Your eyes alone have souls. I shall go mad ! 

Oh ! that they would but leave me all alone, 

To teach poor girls and work within my chamber, 

With mine own thoughts, and all the gentle angels 

Which glance about my dreams at morning-tide ; 

Then I should be as happy as the birds 

Which sing at my bower window. Once I longed 

To be beloved, — now would they but forget me ! 

Most vile I must be, or they could not hate me ! 

Isen. They are of this world, thou art not, poor 
child, 
Therefore they hate thee, as they did thy betters. 

Eliz. But, Lewis, nurse ? 

Isen. He, child ? he is thy knight ; 

Espoused from childhood : thou hast a claim upon him. 
One that thou'lt need, alas ! — though, I remember — 
'Tis fifteen years agone — when in one cradle 
We laid two fair babes for a marriage token ; 
And when your lips met, then you smiled, and twined 
Your little limbs together.— Pray the Saints 
That token stand ! — He calls thee love and sister, 
And brings thee gew-gaws from the wars ; that's much ! 
At least he's thine if thou love him. 

Eliz. If I love him ? 

What is this love ? Why, is he not my brother 
And I his sister ? Till these weary wars, 
The one of us without the other never 
Did weep or laugh : what is't should change us now ? 
You shake your head and smile. 

Isen. Go to ; the chafe 

Comes not by wearing chains but feeling them. 



32 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act i. 

Eliz. Alas ! here comes a knight across the court ; 
0, hide me, nurse ! What's here ? this door is fast. 

Isen. Nay, 'tis a friend : he brought my princess 
hither, 
Walter of Varila ; I feared him once — 
He used to mock our state, and say, good wine 
Should want no bush, and that the cage was gay, 
But that the bird must sing before he praised it. 
Yet he's a kind heart, while his bitter tongue 
Awes these court popinjays at times to manners. 
He will smile sadly too, when he meets my maiden ; 
And once he said, he was your liegeman sworn, 
Since my lost mistress weeping, to his charge 
Trusted the babe she saw no more. — God help us ! 

Eliz. How did my mother die, nurse ? 

Isen. She died, my child. 

Eliz. But how ? Why turn away ? 

Too long I've guessed at some dread mystery 
I may not hear : and in my restless dreams, 
Night after night, sweeps by a frantic rout 
Of grinning fiends, fierce horses, bodiless hands, 
Which clutch at one to whom my spirit yearns 
As to a mother. There's some fearful tie 
Between me and that spirit-world, which God 
Brands with His terrors on my troubled mind. 
Speak ! tell me, nurse ! is she in heaven or hell ? 

Isen. God knows, my child: there are masses for 
her soul, 
Each day in every Zingar minster sung. 

Eliz. But was she holy ? — Died she in the Lord ? 

Isen. (weeps.) Oh, God ! my child ! , And if I told 
thee all, 
How could' st thou mend it ? 

Eliz. Mend it ? Oh, my Saviour ! 

I'd die a saint ! 
Win heaven for her by prayers," and build great 

minsters, 
Chantries, and hospitals for her ; wipe out 
By mighty deeds our race's guilt and shame — 
But thus, poor witless orphan ! ( Weeps.) 



scene I.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 33 

Count Walter enters. 

Wal. Ah ! my princess ! accept your liegeman's 
knee ; 
Down, down, rheumatic flesh ! 

Eliz. Ah ! Count Walter ! you are too tall to kneel 

to little girls. 
Wal. What ? shall two hundred weight of hypo- 
crisy bow down to his four-inch wooden saint, and the 
same weight of honesty not worship his four-foot live 
one ? And I have a jest for you, shall make my small 
queen merry and wise. 

Isen. You shall jest long before she's merry. 
Wal. Ah ! dowers and dowagers again ! The money 
— root of all evil. 
What comes here ? [A Page enters. 

A long-winged grasshopper, all gold, green, and gauze ? 
How these young pea-chicks must needs ape the grown 
peacock's frippery! Prithee, now, how many such 
butterflies as you suck here together on the thistle- 
head of royalty ? 

Page. Some twelve gentlemen of us, Sir — apostles 
of the blind archer, Love — owning no divinity but 
almighty beauty — no faith, no hope, no charity, but 
those which are kindled at her eyes. 

Wal. Saints ! what's all this ? 

Page. Ah, Sir ! none but countrymen swear by the 
saints now-a-days: no oaths but allegorical ones, 
Sir, at the high table ; as thus, — " By the sleeve of 
beauty, Madam ;" or again, " By Love his martyr- 
doms, Sir Count," or to a potentate, " As Jove's impe- 
rial mercy shall hear my vows, High Mightiness." 

Wal. Where did the evil one set you on finding all 
this heathenry ? 

Page. Oh ! we are all barristers of Love's court, Sir, 
— we have Ovid's gay science conned, Sir, ad unguen- 
tum, as they say, out of the French book. 

Wal. So ? There are those come from Rome then 
will whip you and Ovid out with the same rod which 
b3 



34 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [acti. 

the dandies of Provence felt lately to their sorrow. 
Oh ! what blinkards are we gentlemen, to train any 
dumb beasts more carefully than we do Christians ; — 
that a man shall keep his dog-breakers, and his horse- 
breakers, and his hawk-breakers, and never hire him 
a boy-breaker or two ! that we should live without a 
qualm at dangling such a flock of mimicking parro- 
quets at our heels awhile, and then when they are well 
infected, well perfumed with the wind of our vices, 
dropping them off, as tadpoles do their tails, joint by 
joint, into the mud ! to strain at such gnats as an ill- 
mouthed colt or a riotous puppy, and swallow that 
camel of camels, a page ! 

Page. Do you call me a camel, Sir? 

Wal. What's your business ? 

Page. My errand is to the princess here. 

Eliz. To me ? 

Page. Yes; the Landgravine expects you at high 
mass ; so go in, and mind you clean yourself ; for 
every one is not as fond as you of beggars' brats, and 
what their clothes leave behind them. 

Isen. (Strikes him.) Monkey ! To whom are you 
speaking ? 

Eliz. Oh, peace, peace, peace ! I'll go with him. 

Page. Then be quick, my music-master's waiting. 
Corpo di Bacco ! as if our elders did not teach us to 
whom we ought to be rude ! [Ex. Eliz, and Page. 

Isen. See here, Sir Saxon, how this pearl of price 
Is faring in your hands ! The peerless image, 
To whom this court is but the tawdry frame, — 
The speck of light amid its murky baseness, — 
The salt which keeps it all from rotting, — cast 
To be the common fool, — the laughing-stock 
For every beardless knave to whet his wit on ! 
Tar-blooded Germans ! — Here's another of them. 

[A young Knight enters. 

Knight. Heigh ! Count ! What ? learning to sing 
psalms? They are waiting 
For you in the manage- school, to give your judgment 
On that new Norman mare. 



scene i.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 35 

Wal. Tell them I'm busy. 

Knight. Busy ? St. Martin ! Knitting stockings, 
eh? 
To clothe the poor withal ? Is that your business ? 
I passed that canting baby on the stairs ; 
Would heaven that she had tripped, and broke her 

goose-neck, 
And left us heirs de facto. So, farewell. [Exit. 

Wal. A very pretty quarrel ! matter enough 
To spoil a waggon-load of ash-staves on, 
And break a dozen fools' backs across their cantlets. 
What's Lewis doing ? 

Isen. Oh — Befooled, — 

Bewitched with dogs and horses, like an idiot 
Clutching his bauble, while a priceless jewel 
Sticks at his miry heels. 

Wal. The boy's no fool, — 

As good a heart as her's, but somewhat given 
To hunt the nearest butterfly, and light 
The fire of fancy without hanging o'er it 
The porridge-pot of practice. He shall hear on't. 

Isen. And quickly, for there's treason in the wind. 
They'll keep her dower, and send her home with shame 
Before the year's out. 

Wal. Humph ! Some are rogues enough for't. As 
it falls out, I ride with him to-day. 

Isen. Upon what business ? 

Wal. Some shaveling has been telling him that there 
are heretics on his land; stadings, worshippers of black 
cats, baby-eaters, and such like. He consulted me ; I 
told him it would be time enough to see to the heretics, 
when all the good Christians had been well looked 
after. I suppose the novelty of the thing smit him, 
for now nothing will serve but I must ride with him 
round half a dozen hamlets, where, with God's help, I 
will show him a manstye or two, that shall astonish 
his delicate chivalry. 

Isen. Oh, here's your time ! Speak to him, noble 
Walter. 
Stun his dull ears with praises of her grace ; 



36 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act i. 

Prick his dull heart with shame at his own coldness. 
Oh, right us, Count. 

Wal. I will, I will : go in 

And diy your eyes. [Exeunt separately. 

Scene II. 

A Landscape in Thuringia. Lewis and Walter 
riding. 

Lew. So all these lands are mine; these yellow 

meads— 
These village-greens, and forest-fretted hills, 
With dizzy castles crowned. Mine ? Why that word 
Is rich in promise, in the action bankrupt. - 
What faculty of mine, save dream-fed pride 
Can these things fatten ? Mass ! I had forgot : 
I have a right to bark at trespassers. 
Rare privilege ! While every fowl and bush, 
According to its destiny and nature, 
(Which were they truly mine, my power could alter) 
Will live, and grow, and take no thought of me. 
Those firs, before whose stealthy-marching ranks 
The world-old oaks still dwindle and retreat, 
If I could stay their poisoned frown, which cows 
The pale, shrunk underwood, and nestled seeds 
Into an age of sleep, 'twere something : and those men 
O'er whom that one word " ownership" uprears me — 
If I could make them lift a finger up 
But of their own free will, I'd own my seizin. 
But now — when if I sold them, life and limb, 
There's not a sow would litter one pig less 
Than when men called her mine. — Possession's naught ; 
A parchment ghost ; a word I am ashamed 
To claim even here, lest all the forest spirits, 
And bees who drain unasked the free-born flowers, 
Should mock, and cry, " Vain man, not thine, but 

ours." 
Wal. Possession's naught? Possession's beef and 

ale — 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 37 

Soft bed, fair wife, gay horse, good steel. — Are they 

naught ? 
Possession means to sit astride of the world, 
Instead of having it astride of you ; 
Is that naught ? Tis the easiest trade of all too ; 
For he that's fit for nothing else, is fit 
To own good land, and on the slowest dolt 
His state sits easiest, while his serfs thrive best. 

Lew. How now? What need then of long disci- 
pline 
Not to mere feats of arms, but feats of soul ; 
To courtesies and high self-sacrifice, 
To order and obedience, and the grace 
Which makes commands, requests, and service, favour ? 
To faith and prayer, and pure thoughts, ever turned 
To that Valhalla, where the virgin saints 
And stainless heroes tend the Queen of heaven ? 
Why these, if I but need, like stalled ox 
To chew the grass cut for me? 

Wal. Why ? Because 

I have trained thee for a knight, boy, not a ruler. 
All callings want their proper 'prentice time 
But this of ruling ; it comes by mother-wit ; 
And if the wit be not exceeding great, 
'Tis best the wit be most exceeding small ; 
And he that holds the reins, should let the horse 
Range on, feed where he will, live and let live. 
Custom and selfishness will keep all steady 
For half a life. — Six months before you die 
You may begin to think of interfering. 

Lew. Alas! while each day blackens with fresh 
clouds. 
Complaints of ague, fever, crumbling huts, 
Of land thrown out to the forest, game and keepers, 
Bailiffs and barons, plundering all alike ; 
Need, ,greed, stupidity : To clear such ruin 
Would task the rich prime of some noble hero — 
But can I nothing do ? 

Wal. Oh ! plenty, Sir ; 



38 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act i. 

Which no man* yet has done or e'er will do. 

It rests with you, whether the priest be honoured ; 

It rests with you, whether the knight be knightly ; 

It rests with you, whether those fields grow corn ; 

It rests with you, whether those toiling peasants 

Lift to their masters free and loyal eyes, 

Or crawl, like jaded hacks, to welcome graves. 

It rests with you — and will rest. 

Lew. I'll crowd my court and dais with men of 
God, ' 
As doth my peerless name-sake, King of France. 
Wal. Priests, Sir ? The Frenchman keeps two 
counsellors 
Worth any drove of priests. 

Lew. And who are they ? 

Wal. God and his lady-love. {Aside.) He'll open 

at that — 
Lew. I could be that man's squire. 
Wal. (Aside.) Again run riot — 

Now for another cast; (Aloud.) If you'd sleep sound, 

Sir, 
You'll let priests pray for you, but school you never. 
Lew. Mass ! who more fitted ? 

Wal. None, if you could trust them ; 

But they are the people's creatures ; poor men give 

them 
Their power at the Church, and take it back at the 

ale-house : 
Then what's the friar to ihe starving peasant ? 
Just what the abbot is to the greedy noble — 
A scarecrow to lear wolves. Go ask the churchplate, 
Safe in knight's cellars, how these priests are feared. 
Bruised reeds when you most need them. — No, my 

Lord ; 
Copy them, trust them never. 

Lew. Copy? wherein ? % 

Wal. ' In letting every man 

Do what he likes, and only seeing he does it 
As you do your work — well. That's the Church secret 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 39 

For breeding towns, as fast as you breed roe-deer ; 
Example, but no meddling. See that hollow — 
I knew it once all heath, and deep peat-bog — 
I drowned a black mare in that self-same spot 
Hunting with your good father : Well, he gave it 
One jovial night, to six poor Erfurt monks — 
Six picked-visaged, wan, bird-fingered wights — 
All in their rough hair shirts, like hedgehogs starved — 
I told them, six weeks' work would break their 

hearts : 
They answered, Christ would help, and Christ's great 

mother, 
And make them strong when weakest : So they 

settled : 
And starved and froze. 

Lew. And dug and built, it seems. 

Wal. Faith, that's true. See — as garden walls draw 

snails, 

They have drawn a hamlet round ; the slopes are blue 

Knee-deep with flax, the orchard boughs are breaking 

With strange outlandish fruits ; See those young 

rogues 
Marching to school ; no poachers here, Lord Land- 
grave, — 
Too much to be done at home ; there's not a village 
Of yours, now, thrives like this : By God's good help 
These men have made their ownership worth some- 
thing. 
Here comes one of them. 

Lew. I would speak to him — 

And learn his secret — We'll await him here. 

Enter Conrad. 

Con. Peace to you, reverend and war-worn knight, 
And you, fair youth, upon whose swarthy lip 
Blooms the rich promise of a noble manhood. 
Methinks, if simple monks may read your thoughts, 
That with no envious or distasteful eyes 
Ye watch the labours of God's poor elect. 



40 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act i. 

Wed. Why — we were saying, how you cunning 
rooks 
Pitch as by instinct on the fattest fallows. 

Con. For He who feeds the ravens, promiseth 
Our bread and water sure, and leads us on 
By peaceful streams in pastures green to he, 
Beneath our Shepherd's eye. 

Lew. In such a nook, now, 

To nestle from this noisy world — 

Con. — And drop 

The burden of thyself upon the threshold. 

Lew. Think what rich dreams may haunt those 
lowly roofs ! 

Con. Rich dreams, — and more; their dreams will 
find fulfilment— . • 
Their discipline breeds strength — 'Tis we alone 
Can join the patience of the labouring ox 
Unto the eagle's foresight, — not a fancy 
Of ours, but grows in time to mighty deeds ; 
Victories in heavenly warfare : but yours, yours, Sir, 
Oh choke them, choke the panting hopes of youth, 
Ere they be born, and wither in slow pains, 
Cast by for the next bauble ! 

Lew. 'Tis too true ! 

I dread no toil : toil is the true knight's pastime- 
Faith fails, the will intense and fixed, so easy 
To thee, cut off from life and love, whose powers 
In one close channel must condense their stream ; 
But I, to whom this life -blooms rich and busy, 
Whose heart goes out a-Maying all the year 
In this new Eden — in my fitful thought 
What skill is there, to turn my faith to sight — 
To pierce blank Heaven, like some trained falconer 
After his game, beyond all human ken ? 

Wal. And walk into the bog beneath your feet. 

Con. And change it to firm land by magic step ! 
Build there cloud-cleaving spires, beneath whose 

shade 
Great cities rise for vassals ; to call forth 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 41 

From plough and loom the rank unlettered hinds, 
And make them saints and heroes — send them forth 
To sway with heavenly craft the spirit of princes ; 
Change nations' destinies, and conquer worlds 
With love, more mighty than the sword ; what, 

Count ? 
Art thou ambitious ? practical ? we monks 
Can teach you somewhat there too. 

Lew. Be it so ; 

But love you have forsworn ; and what were life 
Without that chivalry, which- bends man's knees 
Before God's image and his glory, best 
Revealed in woman's beauty ? 

Con. Ah ! poor worldlings ! 

Little you dream what maddening ecstacies, 
What rich ideals haunt, by day and night, 
Alone, and in the crowd, even to the death, 
The servitors of that celestial court 
Where peerless Mary, sun- enthroned, reigns, 
In whom all Eden dreams of womanhood, 
All grace of form, hue, sound, all beauty strewn 
Like pearls unstrung, about this ruined world, 
Have their fulfilment and their archetype. 
Why hath the rose its scent, the lily grace ? 
To mirror forth her loveliness, from whom, 
Primeval fount of grace, their livery came : 
Pattern of Seraphs ! only worthy ark 
To bear her God athwart the floods of time ! 

Lev). Who dare aspire to her ? Alas, not I ! 
To me she is a doctrine, and a picture : — 
I cannot live on dreams. 

Con. She hath her train :— 

There thou may'st choose thy love : If world-wide lore 
Shall please thee, and the Cherub's glance of fire, 
Let Catharine lift thy soul, and rapt with her 
Question the mighty dead, until thou float 
Tranced on the ethereal ocean of her spirit. 
If pity father passion in thee, hang 
Above Eulalia's tortured loveliness ; 



42 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act i. 

And for her sake, and in her strength, go forth 
To do and suffer greatly. Dost thou long 
For some rich heart, as deep in love as weakness, 
Whose wild simplicity sweet heaven-born instincts 
Alone keep sane ? 

Lew. I do, I do. I'd live 

And die for each and all the three. 

Con. Then go — 

Entangled in the Magdalen's tresses lie ; 
Dream hours before her picture, till thy lips 
Dare to approach her feet, and thou shalt start 
To find the canvas warm with life, and matter 
A moment transubstantiate to heaven. 

Wal. Ay, catch his fever, Sir, and learn to take 
An indigestion for a .troop of angels. 
Come tell him, monk, about your magic gardens, 
"Where not a stringy head of kale is cut 
But breeds a vision or a revelation. 

Lew. Hush, hush, Count ! Speak, strange monk, 
strange words, and waken 
Longings more strange than either. 

Con. Then, if proved, 

As I dare vouch thee, loyal in thy love, 
Even to the Queen herself thy saintlier soul 
At length may soar : perchance — Oh, bliss too great 
For thought — yet possible ! 

Receive some token — smile — or hallowing touch 
Of that white hand, beneath whose soft caress 
The raging world is Smoothed, and runs its course 
To shadow forth her glory. 

Lew. Thou dost tempt me — 

That were a knightly quest. 

Con. Ay, here's true love. • 

Love's heaven, without its hell ; the golden fruit 
Without the foul husk, which at Adam's fall 
Did crust it o'er with filth anol selfishness. 
T tempt thee heavenward — from yon azure walls 
Unearthly beauties beckon — God's own mother 
Waits longing for thy choice — 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 43 

Lew. Is this a dream? 

Wal. Ay, by the Living Lord, who died for you ! 
"Will you be cozened, sir, by these air-blown fancies, 
These male hysterics, by starvation bred 
And huge conceit ? Cast off God's gift of manhood, 
And like the dog in the adage, drop the true bone 
With snapping at the sham one in the water ? 
What were you born a man for ? 

Leiv. Ay, I know it : — 

I cannot live on dreams. Oh, for one friend, 
Myself, yet not myself; one not so high 
But she could love me, not too pure to pardon 
My sloth and meanness ! Oh ! for flesh and blood, 
Before whose feet I could adore, yet love ! 
How easy then were duty ! From her lips 
To learn my daily task ; — in her pure eyes 
To see the living type of those heaven-glories 
I dare not look on ; — let her work her will 
Of love and wisdom on these straining hinds ; — 
To squire a saint around her labour field, 
And she and it both mine : — That were possession ! 

Con. The flesh, fair youth — 

Wal. Avaunt, bald snake, avaunt ! 

We are past your burrow now. Come, come, Lord 

Landgrave, 
Look round, and find your saint. 

Lew. Alas! one such — 

One such, I know, who upward from one cradle 
Beside me like a sister — No, thank God ! no sister ! — 
Has grown and grown, and with her mellow shade 
Has blanched my thornless thoughts to her own hue, 
And even now is budding into blossom, 
Which never shall bear fruit, but inward still 
Kesorb its vital nectar, self-contained, 
And leave no living copies of its beauty 
To after ages. Ah ! be less, sweet maid, 
Less than thyself! Yet no — my wife thou might'st be, 
If less than thus — but not the saint thou art. 
What ! shall my selfish longings drag thee down 



44 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act i. 

From maid to wife ? degrade the soul I worship ? 

That were a caitiff deed ! Oh, misery ! 

Is wedlock treason to that purity, 

"Which is the jewel and the soul of wedlock ? 

Elizabeth ! my saint ! [Exit CONRAD. 

Wal. What, Sir ? the Princess ? 

Ye saints in heaven, I thank you ! 

Lew. Oh, who else, 

Who else the minutest lineament fulfils 
Of this my cherished portrait ? 

Wal. ' So— 'tis well. 

Hear me, my Lord. — Tou think this dainty princess 
Too perfect for you, eh ? That's well again : 
For that whose price after fruition falls 
May well too high be rated ere enjoyed — 
In plain words, — if she looks an angel now, you will 
be better mated than you expected, when you find her 
— a woman. For flesh and blood she is, and that 
young blood, — whom her childish misusage and your 
brotherly love ; her loneliness and your protection ; 
her springing fancy and (for I may speak to you as a 
son) your beauty and knightly grace have so bewitched, 
and as some say, degraded, that briefly, she loves you, 
and briefly, better, her few friends fear, than you love 
her. 

Lew. Loves me ! My Count, that word is quickly 
spoken ; 
And yet, if it be true, it thrusts me forth 
L'pon a shoreless sea -of untried passion, 
From whence is no return. 

Wal. By Siegfried's sword, 

My words are true, and I came here to say them, 
To thee, my son in all but blood. 
Mass, I'm no gossip. Why ? What ails the boy ? 

Lew. Loves me ! Henceforth let no man, peering 
down 
Through the dim glittering mine of future years, 
Say to himself " Too much ! this cannot be !" 
To-day, and custom, wall up our horizon : 



scene it.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 45 

Before the hourly miracle of life 

Blindfold we stand, and sigh, as though God were not. 

I have wandered in the mountains, mist-bewildered, 

And now a breeze comes, and the veil is lifted, 

And priceless flowers, o'er which I trod unheeding, 

Gleam ready for my grasp. She loves me then ! 

She, who to me was as a nightingale 

That sings in magic gardens, rock-beleaguered, 

To passing angels melancholy music — 

Whose dark eyes hung, like far-off evening stars, 

Through rosy-cushioned windows coldly shining 

Down from the cloudworld of her unknown fancy — 

She, for whom holiest touch of holiest knight 

Seemed all too gross — who might have been a saint 

And companied with angels — thus to pluck 

The spotless rose of her own maidenhood 

To give it unto me ! 

Wal. You love her then ? 

Lew. Look ! If yon solid mountain were all gold, 
And each particular tree a band of jewels, 
And from its womb the Niebelungen hoard 
With elfin wardens called me, " Leave thy love 
And be our Master" — I would turn away — 
And know no wealth but her. 

Wal. Shall I say this to her? 

I am no carrier pigeon, Sir, by breed, 
But now, between her friends and persecutors 
My life's a burden. 

Lew. Persecutors ? Who ? 

Alas ! I guess it — I had known my mother 
Too light for that fair saint, — but who else dare wink 
When she is by? My knights? 

Wal. To a man, my Lord. 

Lew. Here's chivalry ! Well, that's soon brought to 
bar. 
The quarrel's mine ; my lance shall clear that stain. 

Wal. Quarrel with your knights? Cut your own 
chair-legs off! 
They do but sail with the stream. Her passion, Sir, 



46 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act i. 

Broke shell and ran out twittering before yours did, 
And unrequited love is mortal sin 
With this chaste world. My boy, my boy, I tell you, 
The fault lies nearer home. 

Lew. I have played the coward — 

And in the sloth of false humility, 
Cast by the pearl I dared not to deserve. 
How laggard I must seem to her, though she love me ; 
Playing with hawks and hounds, while she sits weeping ! 
'Tis not too late. 

Wal. Too late, my royal eyas ? 

You shall strike this deer yourself at gaze ere long — 
She has no mind to slip to cover. 

Lew. Come — 

We'll back — we'll back ; and you shall bear the mes- 



I am ashamed to speak. Tell her I love her — 
That I should need to tell her ! Say, my coyness 
Was bred of worship, not of coldness. 

Wal. Then the serfs 

Must wait ? 

Lew. Why not? This day to them, too, blessing 
brings, 
Which clears from envious webs their guardian angel's 
wings. [Exeunt. 

Scene III. 

A Chamber in the Castle. Sophia, Elizabeth, 
Agnes, Isentkude, &c, re-entering. 

Soph. What! you will not? You hear, dame Isen- 
trude, 
She will not wear her coronet in the church, 
Because, forsooth, the crucifix within 
Is crowned with thorns. You hear her. 

Eliz. Noble mother, 

How could I flaunt this bauble in His face 
Who hung there, naked, bleeding, all for me — 
I felt it shamelessness to go so gay. 



scene in.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 47 

Soph. Felt ? What then ? Every foolish wench has 
feelings 
In these religious days, and thinks it carnal 
To wash her dishes, and obey her parents — 
No wonder they ape you, if you ape them — 
Go to ! I hate this humble-minded pride, 
Self-willed submission — to your own pert fancies ; 
This fog-bred mushroom-spawn of brain-sick wits, 
Who make their oddities their test for grace, 
And peer about to catch the general eye ; 
Ah ! I have watched you throw your play-mates down 
To have the pleasure of kneeling for their pardon. 
Here's sanctity — to shame your cousin and me — 
Spurn rank and proper pride, and decency ; — 
If God has made you noble, use your rank, 
If you but know how. You Landgravine? You 

mated 
With gentle Lewis ? Why, belike you'll cowl him, 
As that stern prude, your aunt, cowled her poor spouse : 
No — one Hedwiga at a time's enough, — 
My son shall die no monk. 

hen. Beseech you, Madam, — 

Weep not, my darling. 

Soph. Tut — I'll speak my mind. 

We'll have no saints. Thank heaven, my saintliness 
Ne'er troubled my good man, by day or night. 
We'll have no saints, I say ; far better for you, 
And no doubt pleasanter — You know your place — 
At least you know your place, — to take to cloisters, 
And there sit carding wool, and mumbling Latin, 
With sour old maids, and maundering Magdalens, 
Proud of your frost-kibed feet, and dirty serge. 
There's nothing noble in you, but your blood ; 
And that one almost doubts. Who art thou, child ? 

Isen. The daughter, please your highness, 
Of Andreas, king of Hungary, your better, 
And your son's spouse. 

Soph. I had forgotten, truly — 

And you, Dame Isentrudis, are her servant, 



48 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act I. 

And mine : come, Agnes, leave the gipsy ladies 
To say their prayers, and set the Saints the fashion. 

[Sophia and Agnes go out. 

Isen. Proud hussy! Thou shalt set thy foot on her 
neck yet, darling, 
When thou art Landgravine. 

Eliz. And when will that be ? 

Xo, she speaks truth ! I should have been a nun. 
These are the wages of my cowardice, — 
Too weak to face the world, too weak to leave it ! 

Guta. I'll take the veil with you. 

Eliz. 'Twere but a moment's work, — 

To slip into the convent there below, 
And be at peace for ever. And you, my nurse? 

Isen. I will go with thee, child, where'er thou goest. 
But Lewis ? 

Eliz. Ah ! my brother ! No, I dare not — 
I dare not turn for ever from this hope, 
Though it be dwindled to a thread of mist. 
Oh ! that we two could flee and leave this Babel ! 
Oh ! if he were but some poor chapel-priest, 
In lonely mountain valleys far away ; 
And I his serving maid, to work his vestments, 
And dress his scrap of food, and see him stand 
Before the altar like a rainbowed saint, 
To take the blessed wafer from his hand, 
Confess my heart to him, and all night long 
Pray for him while he slept, or through the lattice 
Watch while he read, and see the holy thoughts 
Swell in his big deep" eyes. — Alas! that dream 
Is wilder than the one that's fading even now! 
Who's here ? [A Page enters. 

Page. The Count of Varila, madam, begs permission 
to speak with you. 

Eliz. With me ? What's this new terror ? 

Tell him I wait him. 

Isen. (Aside.) Ah ! my old heart sinks — 

God send us rescue ! Here the champion comes. 



scene in.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 49 

Count Walter enters. 

Wal. Most learned, fair, and sanctimonious prin- 
cess — 
Plague, what comes next ? I had something orthodox 

ready ; 
'Tis dropped out by the way. — Mass ! here's the pith 

on't. — 
Madam, I come a wooing ; and for one 
Who is as xmly worthy of your love, 
As you of his ; he bids me claim the spousals 
Made long ago between you, — and yet leaves 
Your fancy free, to grant, or pass that claim ; 
And being that Mercury is not my planet, 
He hath advised himself to set herein, 
With pen and ink, what seemed good to him, 
As passport to this jewelled mirror, pledge 
Unworthy of his worship. [Gives a letter and jewel. 

Isen. Nunc Domine dimittis servam tuam ! 
[Elizabeth looks over the letter and casket, claps her 

hands, and bursts into childish laughter.] 
Why here's my Christmas tree come after Lent — 
Espousals ? pledges ? by our childish love ? 
Pretty words for folks to think of at the wars, — 
And pretty presents come of them ! Look, Guta ! 
A crystal clear, and carven on the reverse, 
The blessed rood. He told me once — one night, 
When we did sit in the garden — What was I saying? 

Wal. My fairest princess, as ambassador, 

What shall I answer ? 

Eliz. Tell him— tell him— God ! 

Have I grown mad, or a child within the moment ? 
The earth has lost her grey sad hue, and blazes 
With her old life-light ; hark ! yon wind's a song — 
Those clouds are angels' robes. — That fiery west 
Is paved with smiling faces. — I am a woman, 
And all things bid me love ! my dignity 
Is thus to cast my virgin pride away, 
And find my strength in weakness. — Busy brain ! 
c 



50 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act i. 

Thou keep'st pace with my heart ; old lore, old fancies, 

Buried for years, leap from their tombs, and proffer 

Their magic service to my new-born spirit. 

I'll go — I am not mistress of myself — 

Send for him — bring him to me — he is mine ! 

[Exit. 
Isen. Ah ! blessed Saints ! how changed upon the 
moment ! 
She is grown taller, trust me, and her eye 
Flames like a fresh caught hind's. She that was 

christened 
A brown mouse for her stillness ! Good my Lord ! 
Now shall mine old bones see the grave in peace ! 

Scene IV. 

The Bridal Feast. Elizabeth, Lewis, Sophia, and 
Company seated at the Dais table. Court Minstrel 
and Court Fool sitting on the Dais steps. 

Min. How gaily smile the heavens, 

The light winds whisper gay ; 

For royal birth and knightly worth 

Are knit to one to-day. 
Fool [Drowning his voice.'] 

So we'll natter them up, and we'll cocker them 
up, 

Till we turn young brains ; 

And pamper the brach till we make her a 
wolf, 

And get bit by the legs for our pains. 
Monks [Chanting without.'] 

A fastu et superbia 

Domine libera nos. 
Min. 'Neath sandal red and samite, 

Are knights and ladies set ; 

The henchmen tall stride through the hall, 

The board with wine is wet. 
Fool. Oh ! merrily growls the starving hind, 

At my full skin ; 



scene iv.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 51 

And merrily howl wolf, wind, and owl, 
While I lie warm within. 
Monies. A luxu et avaritia 

Domine libera nos. 
Min. Hark ! from the bridal bower, 

Rings out the bridesmaid's song ; 
" 'Tis the mystic hour of an untried power, 
The bride she tarries long." 
Fool. She's schooling herself and she's steeling her- 
self, 
Against the dreary day, 
When she'll pine and sigh from her lattice 

high, 
For the knight that's far away. 
Monks. A carnis illectamentis 

Domine libera nos. 
Min. Blest maid ! fresh roses o'er thie 
The careless years shall fling ; 
While days and nights shall new delights 
To sense and fancy bring. 
Fool, Satins and silks, and feathers and lace, 
Will gild life's pill ; 

Tn jewels and gold folks cannot grow old, 
Fine ladies will never fall ill. 
Monks. A vanitatibus saeculi 

Domine libera nos. 
[Sophia descends from the Dais, leading Elizabeth, 

Ladies follow.] 
Sophia, [to the Fool.] Silence, you screech-owl. 
Come strew flowers, fair ladies, 
And lead unto her bower our fairest bride, 
The cynosure of love and beauty here, 
Who shrines heaven's graces in earth's richest casket. 
Eliz. I come : [aside] Here, Guta, take those monks 
a fee — 
Tell them I thank them — bid them pray for me. 
I am half mazed with trembling joy within, 
And noisy wassail round — 'tis well, for else 
The spectre of my duties and my dangers 
c2 



M 1 I M i i i i i i i i i i nil n mi 



52 THE SAINTS TRAGEDY. [act i. 

Would whelm my heart with terror. Ah ! poor self ! 
Thou took'st this for the term and bourne of troubles — 
And now 'tis here, thou findest it the gate 
Of new sin-cursed infinities of labour, 
"Where thou must do, or die ! 

[Aloud.] Lead on. I'll follow. [Exeunt. 

Fool. There, now. No fee for the fool ; and yet my 
prescription was as good as those old Jeremies'. But 
in law, physic, and divinity, folks had sooner be 
poisoned in Latin, than saved in the mother-tongue. 



scene i.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 53 

ACT II. 

Scene I. a.d. 1221—7. 

Elizabeth's Bower. Night. Lewis sleeping in an 
Alcove. Elizabeth lying on the Floor in the Fore- 
ground. 

Eliz. No streak yet in the blank and eyeless east — 
More weary hours to ache, and smart, and shiver 
On these bare boards, within a step of bliss. 
Why peevish ? 'Tis mine own will keeps me here — 
And yet I hate myself for that same will : 
Fightings within and out ! How easy 'twere, now, 
Just to be like the rest, and let life run — 
To use up to the rind what joys God sends us, 
Not thus forestall His rod : What ! and so lose 
The strength which comes by suffering? Well, if 

grief 
Be gain, mine's double — fleeing thus the snare 
Of yon luxurious and unnerving down, 
And widowed from mine Eden. And why widowed ? 
Because they tell me, love is of the flesh, 
And that's our house-bred foe, the adder in our 

bosoms, 
Which warmed to life, will sting us. They must 

know 

I do confess mine ignorance, Oh Lord ! 

Mine earnest will these painful limbs may prove. 
* * * * *• 

And yet I swore to love him. — So I do 
No more than I have sworn. Am I to blame 
If God makes wedlock that, which if it be not, 
It were a shame for modest lips to speak it, 
And silly doves are better mates than we ? 
And yet our love is Jesus' due, — and all things 



TnrmniTri ■ 1 1 i 



1 miiTTi ni i m miixi nTITTTn Tl 1 1 1 IT ITITTTTTTTTll 



54 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

Which share with Him divided empery 

Are snares and idols — "To love, to cherish, and to 

obey !" 

***** 

Oh ! deadly riddle ! Rent and twofold life ! 

Oh! cruel troth! To keep thee or to break thee 

Alike seems sin ! Oh ! thou beloved tempter, 

[Turning toward the bed. 
"Who first didst teach me love, why on thyself 
From God divert thy lesson ? Wilt provoke Him ? 
What if mine heavenly Spouse in jealous ire 
Should smite mine earthly spouse? Have I two 

husbands ? 
The words are horror — yet they are orthodox ! 

[Rises and goes to the window. 

How many many brows of happy lovers 
The fragrant lips of night even now are kissing ! 
Some wandering hand in hand through arched lanes ; 
Some listening for loved voices at the lattice ; 
Some steeped in dainty dreams of untried bliss ; 
Some nestling soft and deep in well-known arms, 
Whose touch makes sleep rich life. The very birds 
Within their nests are wooing ! So much love ! 
All seek their mates, or finding, rest in peace ; 
The earth seems one vast bride-bed. Doth God 

tempt us ? 
Is't all a veil to blind our eyes from Him ? , 
A fire-fly at the candle ! 'Tis love leads him • - 
Love's light, and light is love : Oh, Eden ! Eden ! 
Eve was a virgin there, they say ; God knows. 
Must all this be as it had never been ? 
Is it all a fleeting type of higher love ? 
Why, if the lesson's pure, is not the teacher 
Pure also ? Is it my shame to feel no shame ? 
Am I more clean, the more I scent uncleanness ? 
Shall base emotions picture Christ's embrace ? 
Rest, rest, torn heart ! Yet where ? in earth or 

heaven ? 



scene i.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 55 

. Still, from out the bright abysses, gleams our Lady's 

silver footstool, 
Still the light- world sleeps beyond her, though the 

night-clouds fleet below. 
Oh ! that I were walking, far above, upon that 

dappled pavement, 
Heaven's floor, which is the ceiling of the dungeon 

where we lie. 
Ah, what blessed Saints might meet me, on that 

platform, sliding silent, 
Past us in its airy travels, angel- wafted, mystical ! 
They perhaps might tell me all things, opening up the 

secret fountains 
Which now struggle, dark and turbid, through their 

dreary prison clay. 
Love ! art thou an earth-born streamlet, that thou 

seek'st the lowest hollows ? 
Sure some vapours float up from thee, mingling with 

the highest blue. 
Spirit-love in spirit-bodies, melted into one existence — 
Joining praises through the ages — Is it all a minstrel's 

dream? 
Alas ! he wakes. [Lewis rises, 

Lewis. Ah ! faithless beauty, 

Is this your promise, that whene'er you prayed 
I should be still the partner of your vigils, 
And learn from you to pray ? Last night I lay dis- 
sembling 
When she who woke you, took my feet for yours : 
Now I shall seize my lawful prize perforce. 
Alas ! what's this ? These shoulders' cushioned ice, 
And thin soft flanks, with purple lashes all, 
And weeping farrows traced ! Ah ! precious life « 

blood ! 
Who has done this ? 

Eliz. Forgive ! 'twas I — my maidens — ■ 

Lewis. 0, ruthless hags ! 

Eliz. Not so, not so — They wept 



■ ■PPWflTTmTf rnilTTni Hill Mil mm immin rm 



56 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii . 

When I did bid them, as I bid thee now 
To think of nought but love. 

Lewis. Elizabeth ! 

Speak ! I will know the meaning of this madness ! 

Eliz. Beloved, thou hast heard how godly souls, 
In every age, have tamed the rebel flesh 
By such sharp lessons. I must tread their paths, 
If I would climb the mountains where they rest. 
Grief is the gate of bliss — why wedlock — knighthood — 
A mother's joys — a hard-earned field of glory — 
By tribulation come — so doth God's kingdom. 

Lewis. But doleful nights, and self-inflicted tor- 
tures 

Are these the love of God ? Is He well pleased 
With this stern holocaust of health and joy? 

Eliz. What ? Am I not as gay a lady-love 
As ever dipt in arms a noble knight ? 
Am I not blithe as bird the live-long day ? 
It pleases me to bear what you call pain, 
Therefore to me 'tis pleasure : joy and grief 
Are the will's creatures ; martyrs kiss the stake — 
The moorland colt enjoys the thorny furze — 
The dullest boor will seek a fight, and count 
His pleasure by his wounds • you must forget, love, 
Eve's curse lays suffering, as their natural lot, 
On woman-kind, till custom makes it light. 
I know the use of pain ; bar not the leech 
Because his cure is bitter — 'Tis such medicine 
Which breeds that paltry strength, that weak devotion, 
For which you say you love me. — Ay, which brings 
Even when most sharp, a stern and awful joy 
As its attendant angel — I'll say no more — 
Not even to thee — command, and I'll obey thee. 

Lewis. Thou casket of all graces ! fourfold wonder 
Of wit and beauty, love and wisdom ! Canst thou 
Beatify the ascetic's savagery 
To heavenly prudence ? Hoitop melts to pity, 
And pity kindles to adoring shower 
Of radiant tears ! Thou tender cruelty ! 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 57 

Gay smiling martyrdom ! Shall I forbid thee ? 

Limit thy depth by mine own shallowness ? 

Thy courage by my weakness ? Where thou darest, 

I'll shudder and submit. I kneel here spell-bound 

Before my bleeding Saviour's living likeness 

To worship, not to cavil : I had dreamt of such things, 

Dim heard in legends, while my pitiful blood 

Tingled through every vein, and wept, and swore 

'Twas beautiful, 'twas Christ-like— had I thought 

That thou wert such : — 

Eliz. You would have loved me still ? 

Lewis. I had gone mad, I think, at every parting 
At mine own terrors for thee. No ; I'll learn to glory 
In that which makes thee glorious ! Noble stains ! 
I'll call them rose leaves out of paradise 
Strewn on the wreathed snows, or rubies dropped 
From martyrs' diadems, prints of Jesus' cross 
Too truly borne, alas ! 

Eliz. I think, mine own, 

I am forgiven at last ? 

Lewis. To-night, my sister — 

Henceforth I'll clasp thee to my heart so fast 
Thou shalt not 'scape unnoticed. — 

Eliz. [laughing.'] We shall see — 

Now I must stop those wise lips with a kiss, 
And lead thee back to scenes of simpler bliss. 

Scene II. 

A Chamber in the Castle. Elizabeth — the Fool — 
Isentkudis — Guta singing. 

Far among the lonely hills, 
As I lay beside my sheep, 
Rest came down upon my soul, 
From the everlasting deep. 

Changeless march the stars above, 
Changeless morn succeeds to even ; 
And the everlasting hills, 
Changeless watch the changeless heaven. 
c3 



58 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. {act ii. 

See the rivers, how they run, 
Changeless to a changeless sea ; 
All around is forethought sure, 
Fixed will and stern decree, 

Can the sailor move the main ? 
Will the potter heed the clay ? 
Mortal ! where the spirit drives, 
Thither must the wheels obey. 

Neither ask, nor fret, nor strive : 
Where thy path is, thou shalt go. 
He who made the stream of time 
Wafts thee down to weal or woe. 

Eliz. That's a swe'et song, and yet it does not 

chime 

With my heart's inner voice. Where had you it, Guta ? 

Guta. From a nun who was a shepherdess in her 

youth — sadly plagued she was by a cruel stepmother, 

till she fled to a convent and found rest to her soul. 

Fool. No doubt ; nothing so pleasant as giving up 
one's own will in one's own way. But she might have 
learnt all that without taking cold on the hill-tops. 
Eliz. Where then, fool? 

Fool. At any market-cross where two or three rogues 
are together, who have neither grace to mend, nor 
courage to say "I did it." Now you shall see the 
shepherdess's baby dressed in my cap and bells. - 

[Sings. 
When I was a greenhorn and young, 
And wanted to be and to do, 
I puzzled my brains about choosing my line, 
Till I found out the way that things go. 

The same piece of clay makes a tile, 

A pitcher, a taw, or a brick : 

Dan Horace knew life ; you may cut out a saint, 

Or a bench from the self-same stick. 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 59 

The urchin who squalls in a gaol, 
By circumstance turns out a rogue ; 
While the castle-born brat is a senator born, 
Or a saint, if religion's in vogue. 

We fall on our legs in this world, 

Blind kittens, tossed in neck and heels : 

'Tis dame Circumstance licks Nature's cubs into 

shape, 
She's the mill-head, if we are the wheels. 

Then why puzzle and fret, plot and dream? 
He that's wise will just follow his nose ; 
Contentedly fish, while he swims with the stream; 
'Tis no business of his where it goes. 

Eliz. Far too well sung for such a saucy song. 
So go. 

Fool. Ay, I'll go. Whip the dog out of church, and 
then rate him for being no Christian. 

[Exit Fool. 

Eliz. Guta, there is sense in that knave's ribaldry : 
We must not thus baptize our idleness, 
And call it resignation : Which is love ? 
To do God's will, or merely suffer it ? 
T do not love that contemplative life : 
No ! I must headlong into seas of toil, 
Leap forth from self, and spend my soul on others. 
Oh ! contemplation palls upon the spirit, 
Like the chill silence of an autumn sun : 
While action, like the roaring south-west wind, 
Sweeps laden with elixirs, with rich draughts 
Quickening the wombed earth. 

Guta. And yet what bliss, 

When, dying in the darkness of God's light, 
The soul can pierce these blinding webs of nature, 
And float up to The Nothing, which is all things — 
The ground of being, where self-forgetful silence 
Is emptiness, — emptiness fulness, — -fulness God, — 



60 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

Till we touch Him, and like a snow-flake, melt 
Upon His light-sphere's keen circumference ! 

Eliz. Hast thou felt this? 

Guta. In part. 

Eliz. Oh, happy Guta! 

Mine eyes are dim — and what if I mistook 
For God's own self, the phantoms of my brain? 
And who am I, that my own will's intent 
Should put me face to face with the living God ? 
I, thus thrust down from the still lakes of thought 
Upon a boiling crater-field of labour. 
No ! He must come to me, not I to Him ; 
If I see God, beloved, I must see Him 
In mine own self: — 

Guta. Thyself? 

Eliz. ' Why start, my sister ? 

God is revealed in the crucified : 
The crucified must be revealed in me : — 
I must put on His righteousness ; show forth 
His sorrow's glory ; hunger, weep with Him ; 
Writhe with His stripes, and let this aching flesh 
Sink through His fiery baptism into death, 
That I may rise with Him, and in His likeness 
May ceaseless heal the sick, and soothe the sad, 
And give away like Him this flesh and blood 
To feed His lambs — ay — we must die with Him 
To sense — and love — 

Guta. To love ? What, then, becomes 

Of marriage vows ? 

Eliz. I know it — so speak not of them. 

Oh ! that's the flow, the chasm in all my longings, 
Which I have spanned with cobweb arguments, 
Yet yawns before me still, where'er I turn, 
To bar me from perfection ; had I given 
My virgin all to Christ ! I was not worthy ! 
I could not stand alone ! 

Guta. Here 'comes your husband. 

Eliz. He comes ! my sun ! and every thrilling vein 
Proclaims my weakness. [Lewis enters. 






scene n.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. CI 

Lewis. Good news, my princess ; in the street below 
Conrad, the man of God from Marpurg, stands, 
And from a bourne-stone to the simple folk 
Does thunder doctrine, preaching faith, repentance, 
And dread of all foul heresies ; his eyes 
On heaven still set, save when with searching frown 
He lours upon the crowd, who round him cower 
Like quails beneath the hawk, and gape, and tremble, 
Now raised to heaven, now down again to hell. 
I stood beside and heard ; like any doe's 
My heart did rise and fall. 

Eliz. Oh, let us hear him ! 

"We too need warning ; shame, if we let pass 
Unentertained, God's angels on their way. 
Send for him, brother. 

Lewis. Let a knight go down 

And say to the holy man, the Landgrave Lewis 
"With humble greetings prays his blessedness 
To make these secular walls the spirit's temple 
At least to-night. 

Eliz. Now go, my ladies, both — 

Prepare fit lodgings, — let your courtesies 
Retain in our poor courts the man of God. 

[Exeunt. Lewis and Elizabeth are left alone. 
Now hear me, best-beloved : I have marked this man : 
And that which hath scared others, draws me towards 

him : 
He has the graces which I want ; his sternness 
I envy for its strength ; his fiery boldness 
I call the earnestness which dares not trifle 
"With life's huge stake ; his coldness but the calm 
Of one who long hath found, and keeps unwavering, 
Clear purpose still ; he hath the gift which speaks 
The deepest things most simply ; in his eye 
I dare be happy — weak I dare not be. 
"With such a guide, — to save this little heart — 
The burden of self-rule — Oh — half my work 
Were eased, and I could live for thee and thine, 
And take no thought of self. Oh, be not jealous, 



62 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

Mine own, mine idol ! For thy sake I ask it — 
I would but be a mate and help more meet 
For all thy knightly virtues. 

Lewis. 'Tis too true ! 

I have felt it long ; we stand, two weakling children, 
Under too huge a burden, while temptations 
Like adders swarm up round : I must be led — 
But thou alone shalt lead me. 

Eliz. I ? beloved ! 

This load more ? Strengthen, Lord, the feeble knees ! 

Lewis. Yes ! thou, my queen, who making thyself 
once mine, 
Hast made me sevenfold thine ; I own thee guide 
Of my devotions, mine ambition's loadstar, 
The Saint whose shrine I serve with lance and lute ; 
If thou wilt have a ruler, let him be 
Through thee, the ruler of thy slave. [Kneels to her. 

Eliz. Oh, kneel not — 

But grant my prayer — If we shall find this man, 
As well I know him, worthy, let him be 
Director of my conscience and my actions 
"With all but thee — Within lovers inner shrine 
We shall be still alone — But joy ! here comes 
Our embassy, successful. 

Enter Cokrad, with Coukt Waltee, Monks, 
Ladies, &c. 

Conrad. Peace to this house. 

Eliz. . Hail to your holiness. 

Lewis. The odour of your sanctity and might 
With balmy steam, and gales of Paradise 
Forestalls you hither. 

Eliz. Bless us doubly, master, 

With holy doctrine, and with holy prayers. 

Con. Children, I am the servant of Christ's ser^- 
vants — 
And needs must yield to those who may command 
By right of creed ; I do accept your bounty — 
]N ot for myself, but for that priceless name, 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 63 

Whose dread authority and due commission, 
Attested by the seal of His vicegerent, 
I bear unworthy here ; through my vile lips 
Christ and His vicar thank you ; on myself — 
And these, my brethren, Christ's adopted poor — 
A menial's crust, and some waste nook, or dog-hutch, 
Wherein the worthless flesh may nightly hide, 
Are best bestowed. 

Eliz. You shall be where you will — 

Do what you will ; unquestioned, unobserved, 
Enjoy, refrain ; silence and solitude, 
The better part which such like spirits choose, 
We will provide ; only be you our master, 
And we your servants, for a few short days : 
Oh, blessed days ! 

Con. Ah, be not hasty, madam ! 

Think whom you welcome ; one who has no skill 
To wink and speak smooth things ; whom fear of God 
Constrains to daily wrath ; who brings, alas ! 
A sword, not peace ; within whose bones the word 
Burns like a pent-up fire, and makes him bold 
If aught in you or yours shall seem amiss, 
To cry aloud and spare not ; let me go — 
To pray for you — as I have done long time, 
Is sweeter than to chide you. 

Eliz. Then your prayers 

Shall drive home your rebukes ; for both we need 

you— 
Our snares are many, and our sins are more. 
So say not nay — I'll speak with you apart. 

[Elizabeth and Conrad retire. 

Lewis, [aside.'] Well, Walter, mine, how like you 
the good legate ? 

Wal. Walter has seen nought of him but his eye ; 
And that don't please him. 

Lewis. How so, sir ! that face 

Is pure and meek — a calm and thoughtful eye. 

Wal. A shallow, stony, steadfast eye ; that looks at 
neither man nor beast in the face, but at something 



64 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act n. 

invisible a yard before him, through you and past you, 
at a fascination, a ghost of fixed purposes that haunts 
him, from which neither reason nor pity will turn him. 
I have seen such an eye in men possessed — with devils, 
or with self : sleek passionless men, who are too re- 
fined to be manly, and measure their grace by their 
effeminacy ; crooked vermin, who swarm up in pious 
times, being drowned out of their earthy haunts by 
the spring-tide of religion ; and so making a gain of 
godliness, swim upon the first of the flood, till it cast 
them ashore on the firm beach of wealth and station. 
I always mistrust those wall-eyed saints. 

LevAs. Beware, sir Count, your keen and worldly 
wit 
Is good for worldly uses, not to tilt 
Withal at holy men and holy things. 
He pleases well the spiritual sense 
Of my most peerless lady, whose discernment 
Is still the touchstone of my grosser fancy : 
He is her friend, and mine ; and you must love him 
Even for our sakes alone. 

[To a 'bystander.'] A word with you, sir. , 
[In the mean time Elizabeth and Conrad are 
talking together.] 

Eliz. I would be taught — 

Con. It seems you claim some knowledge, 

By choosing thus your teacher. 

Eliz. I would know more^- 

Con. Go then to the schools — and be no wiser, 
madam ; 
And let God's charge here run to waste, to seek 
The bitter fruit of knowledge — hunt the rainbow 
O'er hill and dale, while wisdom rusts at home. 

Eliz. I would be holy, master — 

Con. Be so, then. 

God's will stands fair : 'tis thine which fails, if any. 

Eliz. I would know how to rule — 

Con. Then must thou learn 

The needs of subjects, and be ruled thyself. 






scene in.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 65 

Sink, if thou longest to rise ; become most small — 
The strength which comes by weakness makes thee 
great. 

Eliz. I will. 

Lewis. What, still at lessons ? Come, my fairest 
sister, 
Usher the holy man unto his lodgings. [Exeunt. 

Wah [alone.'] So, so, the birds are limed: — Heaven 
grant that we do not soon see them stowed in separate 
cages. Well, here my prophesying ends. I shall go 
to my lands, and see how much the gentlemen, my 
neighbours, have stolen off them the last week, — 
Priests ? Frogs in the king's bedchamber ! What says 
the song? 

I once had a hound, a right good hound, 
A hound both fleet and strong : 
He eat at my board, and he slept by my bed, 
And ran with me all the day long. 

But my wife took a priest, a shaveling priest, 
And "such friendships are carnal," quoth he. 
So my wife and her priest they drugged the poor 

beast, 
And the rat's-bane is waiting for me. 

Scene III. 

The Gateway of a Convent. Night. 

Enter Conkad. 

Con. This night she swears obedience to me! 

Wondrous Lord! 
How hast Thou opened a path, where my young 

dreams 
May find fulfilment : there are prophecies 
Upon her, make me bold. Why comes she not? 
She should be here by now. Strange, how I shrink — 
I, who ne'er yet felt fear of man or fiend. 
Obedience to my will ! An awful charge ! 



66 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

But yet, to have the training of her sainthood ; 
To watch her rise above this wild world's waves 
Like floating water-lily, towards heaven's light 
Opening its virgin snows, with golden eye 
Mirroring the golden sun ; to be her champion, 
And war with fiends for her; that were a " quest" — 
That were true chivalry ; to bring my Judge 
This jewel for His crown; this noble soul, 
Worth thousand prudish clods of barren clay, 
Who mope for heaven because earth's grapes are sour — 
Her, full of youth, flushed with the heart's rich first- 
fruits, 
Tangled in earthly pomp — and earthly love. 
Wife ? Saint by her face she should be : with such looks 
The queen of heaven, pei chance, slow pacing came 
Adown our sleeping wards, when Dominic 
Sank fainting, drunk with beauty : — she is most fair ! 
Pooh ! I know nought of fairness — this I know, 
She calls herself my slave, with such an air 
As speaks her queen, not slave ; that shall be looked 

to— 
She must be pinioned, or she will range abroad 
Upon too bold a wing ; 't will cost her pain- — 
But what of that? there are worse things than pain — 
What ! not yet here ? I'll in, and there await her 
In prayer before the altar ; I have need on 't : 
And shall have more before this harvest's ripe. 

As Conrad goes out, Elizabeth, Isentrudis,- and 
Guta enter. 

Eliz. I saw him just before us : let us onward ; 
We must not seem to loiter. 

Isen. Then you promise 

Exact obedience to his sole direction 
Henceforth in every scruple ? 

Eliz. • In all I can, 

And be a wife. 

Guta. Is it not a double bondage ? 



. 



scene iv.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. G7 

A husband's will is clog enough. Be sure, 
Though free, I crave more freedom. 

Eliz. So do I— 

This servitude shall free me — from myself. 
Therefore I'll swear. 

Isen. To what? 

Eliz. I know not wholly : 

But this I know, that I shall swear to-night 
To yield my will unto a wiser will ; 
To see God's truth through eyes, which, like the eagle's, 
From higher Alps undazzled eye the sun. 
Compelled to discipline from which my sloth 
Would shrink, unbidden, — to deep devious paths 
Which my dull sight would miss, I now can plunge, 
And dare life's eddies fearless. 

Isen. You will repent it. 

Eliz. I do repent, even now. Therefore I'll swear — 
And bind myself to that, which once being right, 
Will not be less right, when I shrink from it. 
No ; if the end be gained — if I be raised 
To freer, nobler use, I'll dare, I'll welcome 
Him and his means, though they were racks and flames. 
Come, ladies, let us in, and to the chapel. [Exeunt. 

Scene IV. 
A Chamber. Guta, Isentrudis, and a Lady. 

Lady. Doubtless she is most holy — but for wisdom — 
Say if 'tis wise to spurn all rules, all censures, 
And mountebank it in the public ways 
Till she becomes a jest? 

Isen. How's this? 

Lady. For one thing — 

Yestreen I passed her in the open street, 
Following the vocal line of chanting priests, 
Clad in rough serge, and with her bare soft palms 
Wooing the ruthless flints ; the gaping crowd 
Unknowing whom they held, did thrust and jostle 



68 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

Her tender limbs ; she saw me as she passed — 
And blushed and veiled her face, and smiled withal. 

Isen. Oh, think, she's not seventeen yet. 

Guta. Why expect 

Wisdom with love in all 1 Each has his gift — 
Our souls are organ pipes of diverse stop 
And various pitch ; each with its proper notes 
Thrilling beneath the self-same breath of God. 
Though poor alone, yet joined, they're harmony. 
Besides, these higher spirits must not bend 
To common methods ; in their inner world 
They move by broader laws, at whose expression 
We must adore, not cavil : here she comes— 
The ministering Saint, fresh from the poor of Christ. 

Elizabeth enters without cloak or shoes, carrying an 
empty basket. 

Isen, What's here, my princess ? Guta, fetch her 
robes ! 
Rest, rest, my child ! 

Eliz. [Throwing herself on a seat.'] Oh ! I have seen 
such things ! 
I shudder still ; your bright looks dazzle me ; 
As those who long in hideous darkness pent 
Blink at the daily light ; this room's too gay ! 
We sit in a cloud, and sing, like pictured angels, 
And say, the world runs smooth — while right below 
Welters the black, fermenting heap of life 
On which our state is built : I saw this day 
What we might be, and still be Christian women : 
And mothers too — I saw one, laid in child-bed 
These three cold weeks upon the black damp straw ; 
No nurses, cordials, or that nice parade 
With which we try to balk the curse of Eve — 
And yet she laughed, and showed her buxom boy, 
And said, Another week, so please the Saints, 
She'd be at work a-field. Look here — and here — 

[Pointing round the room. 



scene iv.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. G9 

I saw no such things there ; and yet they lived. 
Our wanton accidents take root, and grow 
To vaunt themselves God's laws, until our clothes, 
Our gems, and gaudy books, and cushioned litters 
Become ourselves, and we would fain forget 
There live who need them not. 

[Guta offers to robe her. 
Let be, beloved — 
I will taste somewhat this same poverty — 
Try these temptations, grudges, gnawing shames, 
For which 'tis blamed ; how probe an unfelt evil ? 
Would'st be the poor man's friend? Must freeze with 

him — 
Test sleepless hunger — let thy crippled back 
Ache o'er the endless furrow ; how was He, 
The blessed One, made perfect ? Why, by grief — 
The fellowship of voluntary grief — 
He read the tear-stained book of poor men's souls, 
As I must learn to read it. Lady ! lady ! 
Wear but one robe the less — forego one meal — 
And thou shalt taste the core of many tales 
Which now flit past thee, like a minstrel's songs, 
The sweeter for their sadness. — 

Lady. Heavenly wisdom ! 

Forgive me ! 

Eliz. How? What wrong is mine, fair dame? 

Lady. I thought you, to my shame — less wise than 
holy. 
But you have conquered : I will test these sorrows 
On mine own person ; I have toyed too long 
In painted pinnace down the stream of life, 
Witched with the landscape, while the weary rowers 
Faint at the groaning oar : I'll be thy pupil. 
Farewell. Heaven bless thy labours and thy lesson. 

[Exit. 

Isen. We are alone. Now tell me, dearest lady, 
How came you in this plight? 

Eliz. Oh ! chide not, nurse — 

My heart is full — and yet I went not far — 



70 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act n. 

Even here, close by, where my own bower looks down 

Upon that unknown sea of wavy roofs, 

I turned into an alley 'neath the wall — 

And stepped from earth to hell. — The light of heaven, 

The common air, was narrow, gross, and dun ; 

The tiles did drop from the eaves ; the unhinged doors 

Tottered o'er inky pools, where reeked and curdled 

The offal of a life ; the gaunt-haunched swine 

Growled at their christened playmates o'er the scraps. 

Shrill mothers cursed; wan children wailed; sharp 

coughs 
Rang through the crazy chambers ; hungry eyes 
Glared dumb reproach, and old perplexity, 
Too stale for words ; o'er still and webless looms _ 
The listless craftsmen through their elf-locks scowled ; 
These were my people ! all I had, I gave — 
They snatched it thankless ; (was it not their own ? 
Wrung from their veins, returning all too late ?) 
Or in the new delight of rare possession, 
Forgot the giver ; one did sit apart, 
And shivered on a stone ; beneath her rags 
Nestled two impish, fleshless, leering boys, 
Grown old before their youth ; they cried for bread — 
She chid them down, and hid her face and wept ; 
I had given all — I took my cloak, my shoes, 
(What could I else ? 'Twas but a moment's want 
Which she had borne, and borne day after day,) 
And clothed her bare gaunt arms and purpled feet, 
Then slunk ashamed away to wealth and honour. 

Conead enters. 

What? Conrad? unannounced! This is too bold! 
Peace ! I have lent myself — and I must take 
The usury of that loan : your pleasure, master ? 

Con. Madam, but yesterday, I bade your presence, 
To hear the preached word of God ; I preached — 
And yet you came not — Where is now your oath ? 
Where is the right to bid, you gave to me? 
Am I your ghostly guide ? I asked it not. 



scene v.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 71 

Of your own will you tendered that, which, given, 

Became not choice, but duty. — What is here? 

Think not that alms, or lowly -seeming garments, 

Self-willed humilities, pride's decent mummers, 

Can raise above obedience ; she from God 

Her sanction draws, while these we forge ourselves, 

Mere tools to clear her necessary path. 

Go free — thou art no slave : God doth not own 

Unwilling service, and His ministers 

Must lure, not drag in leash ; henceforth I leave thee : 

Riot in thy self-willed fancies ; pick thy steps 

By thine own will-o'-the-wisp toward the pit ; 

Farewell, proud girl. [Exit Conrad. 

Eliz. Oh God ! What have I done ? 

I have cast off the clue of this world's maze, 
And like an idiot, let my boat adrift 
Above the water-fall !— I had no message — 
How's this? 

Isen. We passed it by, as matter of no moment 
Upon the sudden coming of your guests. 

Eliz. No moment ! 'Tis enough to have driven him 
forth— 
And that's enough to damn me : I'll not chide you — 
I can see nothing but my loss ; I'll to him — 
I'll go in sackcloth, bathe his feet with tears — 
And know nor sleep nor food till I am forgiven — 
And you must with me, ladies. Come and find him. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene V. 

A Hall in the Castle. In the background a Group of 
diseased and deformed Beggars; Conrad entering, 
Elizabeth comes forward to meet him. 

Con. What dost thou, daughter ? 
Eliz. Ah, my honoured master ! 

That name speaks pardon, sure. 

Con. What dost thou, daughter ? 

Eliz. I have been washing these poor people's feet. 



72 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

Con. A wise humiliation. 

Eliz. So I meant it — 

And use it as a penance for my pride ; 
And yet, alas, through my own vulgar likings 
Or stubborn self-conceit, 'tis none to me. 
I marvel how the Saints thus tamed their spirits : 
Sure to be humbled by such toil, but proves, 
Not cures, our lofty mind. 

Con. Thou speakest well — 

The knave who serves unto another's needs 
Knows himself abler than the man who needs him ; 
And she who stoops, will not forget, that stooping 
Implies a height to stoop from. 

Eliz. Could I see 

My Saviour in His poor ! 

Con. * Thou shalt hereafter : 

But now to wash Christ's feet were dangerous honour 
For weakling grace ; would you be humble, daughter, 
You must look up, not down, and see yourself 
A paltry atom, sap-transmitting vein 
Of Christ's vast vine ; the pettiest joint and member 
Of His great body ; own no strength, no will, 
Save that which from the ruling head's command 
Through me, as nerve, derives ; let thyself die — 
And dying, rise again to fuller life. 
To be a whole is to be small and weak — 
To be a part is to be great and mighty 
In the one spirit of the mighty whole — 
The spirit of the martyrs and the saints — 
The spirit of the queen, on whose towered neck 
"We hang, blest ringlets ! 

Eliz. Why ! thine eyes flash fire ! 

Con. But hush ! such words are not for courts and 
halls — 
Alone with God and me, thou shalt hear more. 

[Exit Conrad. 

Eliz. As when rich chanting ceases suddenly — 
And the rapt sense collapses ! — Oh, that Lewis 
Could feed my soul thus ! But to work — to work — 






scene v.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 73 

What wilt thou, little maid ? Ah, I forgot thee — 

Thy mother lies in childbed — Say, in time 

I'll bring the baby to the font myself. 

It knits them unto me, and me to them, 

That bond of sponsorship — How now, good dame — 

Whence then so sad ? 

Woman. An 't please your nobleness, 

My neighbour Gretl is with her husband laid 
In burning fever. 

Eliz. I will come to them. 

Woman. Alack, the place is foul for such as you ; 
And fear of plague has cleared the lane of lodgers ; 
If you could send — 

Eliz. What ? where I am afraid 

To go myself, send others ? That's strange doctrine. 
I'll be with you anon. [Goes up into the Hall. 

Isentkudis enters with a basket. 

Isen. Why, here's a weight — These cordials now, 
and simples, 
Want a stout page to bear them ; yet her fancy 
Is still to go alone, to help herself. — 
Where will 't all end ? In madness, or the grave ? 
No limbs can stand these drudgeries ; no spirit 
The fretting harrow which this ruffian priest 
Calls education — 
Ah ! here comes our Count. 

[Count Waltee enters as from a journey.'] 
Too late, sir, and too seldom — Where have you been 
These four months past, while we are sold for bond- 
slaves 
Unto a peevish friar ? 

Wal. Why, my fair rose-bud— 

A trifle over-blown, but not less sweet — 
I have been pining for you, till my hair 
Is as grey as any badger's. 

Isen. I'll not jest. 

Wal. What ? has my wall-eyed Saint shown you his 
temper ? 

D 



74 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

Ism. The first of his peevish fancies was, that she 
should eat nothing which was not honestly and peace- 
ably come by. 

Wal. Why, I heard that you too had joined that 
sect, 

Isen. And more fool I. But ladies are bound to set 
an example — while they are not bound to ask where 
everything comes from : with her, poor child, scruples 
and starvation were her daily diet ; meal after meal 
she rose from table empty, unless the Landgrave 
nodded and winked her to some lawful eatable ; till 
she that used to take her food like an angel, without 
knowing it, was thinking from morning to night 
whether she might eat this, that, or the other. 

Wal. Poor Eves ! if the world leaves you innocent, 
the Church will not.' Between the devil and the 
director, you are sure to get your share of the apples 
of knowledge ! 

Isen. True enough. She complained to Conrad of 
her scruples, and he told her, that by the law was the 
knowledge of sin. 

Wal. But what said Lewis ? 

Isen. As much bewitched as she, sir. He has told 
her, and more than her, that were it not for the 
laughter and ill-will of his barons, he would join her in 
the same abstinence. But all this is child's play, to 
the friar's last outbreak. 

Wal. Ah ! The sermon which you all forgot, when 
the Marchioness of Misnia came suddenly ? I heard 
that war had been proclaimed on that score ; but what 
terms of peace were concluded ? 

Isen. Terms of peace ? Do you call it peace to be 
delivered over to his nuns' tender mercies, myself and 
Guta, as well as our lady,— as if we had been bond- 
slaves and blackamoors ? 

Wal. You need not have submitted. 

Isen. What ? could I bear to' see my poor child wan- 
dering up and down, wringing her hands like a mad 
woman — I who have lived for no one else this sixteen 



scene vi.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 75 

years? Guta talked sentiment, — called it a glorious 
cross, and so forth. — I took it as it came. 

Wal. And got no quarter, I'll warrant. 

Isen. Don't talk of it — my poor back tingles at the 
thought ! 

Wal. The sweet saints think every woman of the 
world no better than she should be ; and without 
meaning to be envious, owe you all a grudge for past 
flirtations. As I am a knight, now it's over, I like you 
all the better for it. 

Isen. What? 

Wal. When I see a woman who will stand by her 
word, and two who will stand by their mistress. And 
the monk, too — there's mettle in him. I took him for 
a canting carpet-haunter ; but be sure, the man who 
will bully his own patrons, has an honest purpose in 
him, though it bears strange fruit on this wicked 
hither-side of the grave. Now, my fair nymph of the 
birchen-tree, use your interest to find me supper and 
lodging ; for your elegant squires of the trencher look 
surly on me here : I am the prophet who has no honour 
in his own country. [Exeunt. 

Scene VI. 

Dawn. A rocky path leading to a mountain Chapel. 
A Peasant sitting on a stone ivith dog and Crossboiv. 

Peasant singing. 

Over the wild moor, in reddest dawn of morning, 
Gaily the huntsman down green droves must 

roam : 
Over the wild moor, in greyest wane of evening, 
Weary the huntsman comes wandering home ; 

Home, home, 
If he has one. Who comes here ? 

[A Woodcutter enters ivith a laden ass.] 
What art going about? 

Woodcutter. To warm other folks' backs. 
D2 



76 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act n. 

Peas. Thou art in the common lot — Jack earns and 
Gill spends — therein lies the true division of labour. 
What's thy name ? 

Woodc. Be'est a keeper, man, or a charmer, that 
dost so catechize me ? 

Peas. Both — I am a keeper, for I keep all I catch ; 
and a charmer, for I drive bad spirits out of honest 
men's turnips. 

Woodc. Mary sain us, what be they like ? 

Peas. Four-legged kitchens of leather, cooking 
farmers' crops into butcher's meat by night, without 
leave or licence. 

Woodc. By token, thou'rt a deer stealer ? 

Peas. Stealer, quoth he? I have dominion. - I do 
what I like with mine own. 

Woodc. Thine own ? ' 

Peas. Yea, marry — for saith the priest, man has 
dominion over the beast of the field and the fowl of 
the air: so I, being as I am a man, as men go, have 
dominion over the deer in my trade, as you have in 
yours over sleep-mice and woodpeckers. 

Woodc. Then every man has a right to be a 
poacher. 

Peas. Every man has his gift, and the tools go to 
him that can use them. Some are born workmen ; 
some have souls above work. I'm one of that metal. 
I was meant to own land, and do nothing; but the 
angel that deals out babies' souls, mistook the cradles, 
and spoilt a gallant gentleman ! Well — I forgive' him ! 
there were many born the same night — and work 
wears the wits. 

Woodc. I had sooner draw in a yoke than hunt in a 
halter, Had'st best repent and mend thy ways. 

Peas. The way- warden may do that : I wear out no 
ways, I go across country. Mend ? saith he ? Why I 
can but starve at worst, or groan with the rheumatism, 
which you do already. And who would reek and 
wallow o' nights in the same straw, like. a stalled cow, 
when he may have his choice of all the clean holly 



scene vi.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 77 

bushes in the forest ? Who would grub out his life in 
the same croft, when he has free-warren of all fields 
between this and Rhine ? Not I. I have dirtied my 
share of spades myself; but I slipped my leash and 
went self-hunting. 

Woodc. But what if thou be caught and brought up 
before the prince ? 

Peas. He don't care for game. He has put down 
his kennel, and keeps a tame saint instead : and when 
I am driven in, I shall ask my pardon of her in St. 
John's name. They say that for his sake she'll give 
away the shoes off her feet. 

Woodc. I would not stand in your shoes for all the 
top and lop in the forest. Murder! Here comes a 
ghost! Run up the bank — shove the jackass into the 
ditch. 

[A white figure comes up the path ivith lights.'] 

Peas. A ghost or a watchman, and one's as bad as 
the other — so we may take to cover for the time. 

[Elizabeth enters meanly clad, carrying her new-born 
infant ; Isentkudis following with a taper and gold 
pieces on a salver. Elizabeth passes, singing.] 

Deep in the warm vale the village is sleeping, 
Sleeping the firs on the bleak rock above ; 
Nought wakes, save grateful hearts, silently 

creeping 
Up to their Lord in the might of their love. 

What Thou hast given to me, Lord, here I bring 

Thee, 
Odour, and light, and the magic of gold ; 
Eeet which must follow Thee, lips which must 

sing Thee, 
Limbs which must ache for Thee ere they grow 

old. 

What Thou hast given to me, Lord, here I tender, 
Life of mine own life, the fruit of my love ; 



78 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

Take him, yet leave him me, till I shall render 
Count of the precious charge, kneeling above. 

[They pass up the path. The peasants come out.] 

Peas. No ghost, but a mighty pretty wench, with a 
mighty sweet voice. 

Woodc. Wench, indeed? Where be thy manners? 
'Tis her Ladyship — the Princess. 

Peas. The Princess ! Ay, I thought those little 
white feet were but lately out of broadcloth — still, I 
say, a mighty sweet voice — I wish she had not sung so 
sweetly — it makes things to arise in a body's head, 
does that singing : a wonderful handsome lady ! a royal 
lady ! 

Woodc. But a most unwise one. Did ye mind the 
gold? If I had such -a trencher full, it should sleep 
warm in a stocking, instead of being made a brother 
to owls here, for every rogue to snatch at. 

Peas. Why then ? who dare harm such as her, 
man? 

Woodc. Nay, nay, none of us, we are poor folks, 
we fear God and the king. But if she had met a 
gentleman now — heaven help her ! Ah ! thou hast lost 
a chance — thou might'st have run out promiscuously, 
and down on thy knees, and begged thy pardon for 
the new comer's sake. There was a chance, indeed. 

Peas. Pooh, man, I have done nothing but lose 
chances all my days. I fell into the fire the. day I was 
christened, and ever since I am like a fresh-trimmed 
fir-tree ; every foul feather sticks to me. 

Woodc. Go, shrive thyself, and the priest will scrub 
off thy turpentine with a new hair-cloth ; and now, 
good day, the maids are a- waiting for their fire-wood. 

Peas. A word before you go — Take warning by me 
— Avoid that same serpent, wisdom — Pray to the 
Saints to make you a blockhead — Never send your 
boys to school — For Heaven knows, a poor man that 
will live honest, and die in his bed, ought to have no 
more scholarship than a parson, and ho more brains 
than your jackass. 



scene vii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 



Scene VII. 

Tlie Gateway of a Castle. Elizabeth and her suite 
standing at the top of a flight of steps. Mob below. 

Peas. Bread ! Bread ! Bread ! give us bread ; we 
perish. 

1st Voice. Ay, give, give, give ! God knows, we're 
long past earning. 

2nd Voice. Our skeleton children lie along in the 
roads — 

Zrd Voice. Our sheep drop dead about the frozen 
leas — 

4th Voice. Our harness and our shoes are boiled for 
food — 

Old Man's Voice. Starved, withered, autumn hay- 
that thanks the scythe ! 
Send out your swordsmen, mow the dry bents down, 
And make this long death short — we'll never struggle. 

All. Bread, bread ! 

Eliz. Ay, bread — "Where is it, knights and servants ? 
Why butler, seneschal, this food forthcomes not ? 

Butler. Alas, we've eaten all ourselves : heaven 
knows 
The pages broke the buttery hatches down — 
The boys were starved almost. 

Voice below. Ay, she can find enough to feast her 
minions. 

Woman's Voice. How can she know what 'tis, for 
months and months 
To stoop and straddle in the clogging fallows, 
Bearing about a living babe within you ? 
And then at night to fat yourself and it 
On fir-bark, madam, and water. 

Eliz. My good dame — 

That which you bear, I bear: for food, God knows, 
I have not tasted food this live-long day — 
Nor will, till you are served. I sent for wheat. 



80 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

From Koln and from the Rhine -land, days ago, 
Oh God ! why comes it not ? 

Enter from lehw 00X1X1 Waltek, with a Merchant. 

Wat. Stand back ; you'll choke me, rascals : 
Archers, bring up those mules. Here comes the 

corn — 
Here comes your guardian angel, plenty -laden, 
With no white wings, but good white wheat, my boys, 
Quarters on quarters — if you'll pay for it. 

Eliz. Oh ! give him all he asks. 

Wal. The scoundrel wants 

Three times its value. 

Merchant. Not a penny less— 

I bought it on speculation — I must live — 
I get my bread by buying corn that's chea/p, 
And selling where 'tis dearest. Mass, you need it, 
And you must pay according to your need. 

Mob. Hang him ! hang all regraters — hang the 
forestalling dog ! 

Wal. Driver, lend here the halter off that mule. 

Eliz. Nay, Count ; the corn is his, and his the 
right 
To fix conditions for his own. 

Mer. Well spoken ! 

A wise and royal lady ! She will see 
The trade protected. "Why, I kept the corn 
Three months on venture. Now, so help me- Saints, ' 
I am a loser by it, quite a loser — 
So help me Saints, I am. 

Eliz. You will not sell it 

Save at a price, which, by the bill you tender, 
Is far beyond our means. Heaven knows, I grudge 

not — 
I have sold my plate, have pawned my robes and 

jewels, 
Mortgaged broad lands and castles to buy food — 
And now I have no more — Abate, or trust 
Our honour for the difference. 






scene vii.] THE SAINTS TRAGEDY. 81 

Mer. Not a penny — 

I trust no nobles. I must make my profit — 
I'll have my price, or take it back again. 

Eliz. Most miserable, cold, short-sighted man, 
Who for thy selfish gains dost welcome make 
God's wrath, and battenest on thy fellows' woes, 
What! wilt thou turn from heaven's gate, open to 

thee, 
Through which thy charity may passport be, 
And win thy long greed's pardon ? Oh, for once 
Dare to be great ; show mercy to thyself ! 
See how that boiling sea of human heads 
Waits open-mouthed to bless thee : speak the word, 
And their triumphant quire of jubilation 
Shall pierce God's cloudy floor with praise and prayers, 
And drown the accuser's count in angels' ears. 

[In the mean time Walter, &c., have been throwing 
down the wheat to the Mob.] 

Mob. God bless the good Count ! — Bless the holy 
princess — 
Hurrah for wheat — Hurrah for one full stomach. 

Mer. Ah ! that's my wheat ! treason, my wheat, 
my money ! 

Eliz. Where is the wretch's wheat ? 

Wal. Below, my lady ; 

We counted on the charm of your sweet words, 
And so did for him, what, your sermon ended, 
He would have done himself. 

Knight. 'Twere rude to doubt it. 

Mer. Ye rascal barons ! 
What ! Are we burghers monkeys for your pastime ? 
We'll clear the odds. [Seizes Walter. 

Wal. Soft, friend ! — a worm will turn. 

Voices below. Throw him down ! 

Wal. Dost hear that, friend ? 

Those pups are keen-toothed ; they have eat of late 
Worse bacon to their bread than thee. Come, come, 
Put up thy knife ; we'll give thee market-price — 
d3 



82 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

And if thou must have more — why take it out 
In board and lodging in the castle dungeon. 

[Walter leads him out ; the Mob, Ac, disperse. 

Eliz. Now then — there's many a one lies faint at 
home — 
I'll go to them myself. 

Isen. What now ? start forth 

In this most bitter frost, so thinly clad ? 

Eliz. Tut, tut, I wear my working dress to-day, 
And those who work, robe lightly — 

Isen. Nay, my child, 

For once keep up your rank. 

Eliz. Then I had best 

Roll to their door in lacqueyed equipage, 
And dole my halfpence from a satin purse — 
I am their sister — I must look like one. 
I am their queen — I'll prove myself the greatest 
By being the minister of all. So come — 
Now to my pastime. [Aside.] 

And in happy toil 
Forget this whirl of doubt — We are weak, we are 

weak^ 
Only when still — put thou thine hand to the plough, 
The spirit drives thee on. 

Isen. You live too fast ! 

Eliz. Too fast ? We live too slow — our gummy blood 
Without fresh purging airs from heaven, would choke 
Slower and slower, till it stopped and froze. 
God ! fight we not within a cursed world, 
Whose very air teems thick with leagued fiends — 
Each word we speak has infinite effects — 
Each soul we pass must go to heaven or hell — 
And this our one chance through eternity 
To drop and die, like dead leaves in the brake, 
Or like the meteor stone, though whelmed itself, 
Kindle the dry moors into fruitful blaze — 
And yet we live too fast I 

Be earnest, earnest, earnest ; mad, if thou wilt : 
Do what thou dost as if the stake were heaven, 






scene viii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 83 

And that thy last deed ere the judgment-day. 

When all's done, nothing's done. There's rest above — 

Below let work be death, if work be love ! 

[Exeunt. 

Scene VIII. 

A Chamber in the Castle. Counts Walter, Hugo, &c, 
A blot, and Knights. 

Count Hugo. I can't forget it, as I am a Christian 
man. To ask for a stoup of beer at breakfast, and be 
told, there was no beer allowed in the house — her 
Ladyship had given all the malt to the poor. 

Abbot. To give away the staff of life, eh ? 

C. Hugo. The life itself, sir, the life itself. All that 
barley, that would have warmed many an honest fellow's 
coppers, wasted in filthy cakes. 

Abbot. The parent of seraphic ale degraded into 
plebeian dough ! Indeed, sir, we have no right to 
lessen wantonly the amount of human enjoyment ! 

C. Wal. In heaven's name, what would you have 
her do, while the people were eating grass ? 

C. Hugo. Nobody asked them to eat it ; nobody 
asked them to be there to eat it ; if they will breed 
like rabbits, let them feed like rabbits, say I — I never 
married till I could keep a wife. 

Abbot. Ah, Count Walter ! How sad to see a man 
of your sense so led away by his feelings ! Had but 
this dispensation been left to work itself out, and 
evolve the blessing implicit in all heaven's chastenings ! 
Had but the stern benevolences of providence remained 
undisturbed by her ladyship's carnal tenderness — what 
a boon had this famine been ! 

C. Wal. How then, man ? 

Abbot. How many a poor soul would have been 
lying — Ah, blessed thought! — in Abraham's bosom; 
who must now toil on still in this vale of tears ! — 
Pardon this pathetic dew — I cannot but feel as a 
Churchman. 



84 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

3rd Count. Look at it in this way, sir. There are 
too many of us — too many — Where you have one job 
you have three workmen. Why, I threw three hun- 
dred acres into pasture my self this year — it saves money, 
and risk, and trouble, and tithes. 

C. Wal. What would you say to the Princess, who 
talks of breaking up all her parks to wheat next year ? 

3rd Count. Ask her to take on the thirty families, 
who were just going to tramp off those three hundred 
acres into the Rhine-land, if she had not kept them in 
both senses this winter, and left them on my hands — 
once beggars, always beggars. 

C. Hugo. Well, I'm a practical man, and I say, the 
sharper the famine, the higher are prices, and the 
higher I sell, the more. I can spend; so the money 
circulates, sir, that's the word — like water — -sure to 
run downwards again ; and so it's as broad as it's long ; 
and here's a health — if there was any beer — to the 
farmer's friends, " A bloody war and a wet harvest." 

Abbot. Strongly put, though correctly. For the 
self-interest of each it is, which produces in the aggre- 
gate the happy equilibrium of all. 

C. Wal. Well — the world is right well made, that's 
certain ; and He who made the Jews' sin our salvation 
may bring plenty out of famine, and comfort out of 
covetousness. But look you, sirs, private selfishness 
may be public weal, and yet private selfishness be just 
as surely damned, for all that: 

3rd Count. I hold, sir," that every alms is a fresh 
badge of slavery. 

C. Wal. I don't deny it. 

3rd Count. Then teach them independence. 

C. Wal. How ? By tempting them to turn thieves, 
when begging fails? By keeping their stomachs just 
at desperation-point? By starving jthem out here, to 
march off, starving all the way r to some town, in 
^search of employment, of which, if they find it, they 
know no more than my horse ? Likely ! No, sir, to 



scene vni.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 85 

make men of them , put them not out 'of the reach, "but 
out of the need, of charity. 

Zrd Count. And how, prithee ? By teaching them, 
like our fair Landgravine, to open their mouths for all 
that drops? Thuringia is become a kennel of beggars 
in her hands. 

C. Wal. In her's? In ours, sir! 

Abbot. Idleness, sir, deceit, and immorality, are the 
three children of this same barbarous self-indulgence 
in alms-giving. Leave the poor alone. Let want 
teach them the need of self-exertion, and misery prove 
the foolishness of crime. 

C. Wal. How? Teach them to become men by 
leaving them brutes ? 

Abbot. Oh, sir, there we step in, with the consola- 
tions and instructions of the faith. 

C. Wal. Ay, but while the grass is growing the 
steed is starving ; and in the mean time, how will the 
callow chick Grace, stand against the tough old game- 
cock Hunger? 

3rd Count. Then how, in the name of patience, 
would you have us alter things ? 

C. Wal. We cannot alter them, sir — but they will 
be altered, never fear. 

Omnes. How? How? 

C. Wal. Do you see this hour-glass? — Here's the 
state — this air stands for the idlers ; — this sand for the 
workers. When all the sand has run to the bottom, 
God in heaven just turns the hour-glass, and then — 

C. Hugo. The world's upside down. 

C. Wal. And the Lord have mercy upon us ! 

Omnes. Onus? Do you call us the idlers? 

C. Wal. Some dare to do so — But fear not — In the 
fulness of time, all that's lightest is sure to come to 
the top again. 

C. H. But what rascal calls us idlers ? 

Omnes. Name, name. 

C. WaL Why, if you ask me — I heard a shrewd 



86 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act n. 

sermon the other day on that same idleness and im- 
morality text of the Abbot's. — 'Twas Conrad, the Prin- 
cess's director, preached it. And a fashionable cap it 
is, though it will fit more than will like to wear it. 
Shall I give it you ? Shall I preach ? 

C. H. A tub for Yarila ! Stand on the table, now, 
toss back thy hood like any Franciscan, and preach 
away. 

C. Wal. Idleness, quoth he (Conrad, mind you), — 
idleness and immorality? Where have they learnt 
them, but from you nobles ? There was a saucy monk, 
for you. But there's worse coming. Religion ? said 
he, how can they respect it, when they see you, ' their 
betters,' fattening on church lands, neglecting sacra- 
ments, defying excommunications, trading in benefices, 
hiring the clergy for your puppets and flatterers, 
making the ministry, the episcopate itself, a lumber- 
room wherein to stow away the idiots and spendthrifts 
of your families, the confidants of your mistresses, the 
cast-ofi pedagogues of your boys? 

Omnes. The scoundrel! 

C. Wal. Was he not ? — But hear again — Immorality ? 
roars he ; and who has corrupted them but you? Have 
not you made every castle a weed-bed, from which 
the newest corruptions of the Court stick like thistle- 
down, about the empty heads of stable-boys and 
serving-maids? Have you not kept the poor worse 
housed than your dogs and your horses, worse fed than 
your pigs and your sheep ? Is there an ancient house 
among you, again, of which village gossips do not 
whisper some dark story of lust and oppression, of 
decrepit debauchery, of hereditary doom? 

Omnes. We'll hang this monk. 

C. Wal. Hear me out, and you'll burn him. His 
sermon was like a hail-storm, the tail of the shower 
the sharpest. Idleness? he asked- next of us all: How 
will they work, when they sec you landlords sitting 
idle above them, in a fool's paradise of luxury and riot, 
never looking down but to squeeze from them an extra 



scene vin.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 87 

drop of honey — like sheep -boys stuffing themselves 
with blackberries while the sheep are licking up flukes 
in every ditch ? And now you wish to leave the poor 
man in the slough, whither your neglect and your 
example have betrayed him, and made his too apt 
scholarship the excuse for your own remorseless greed ? 
As a Christian, I am ashamed of you all : as a Church- 
man, doubly ashamed of those prelates, hired stalking- 
horses of the rich, who would fain gloss over their own 
sloth and cowardice with the wisdom which cometh 
not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish ; aping 
the heartless cant of an aristocracy who made them — 
use them — and despise them. That was his sermon. 

Abbot. Paul and Barnabas! What an outpouring 
of the spirit! — Were not his hoodship the Pope's 
legate, now — accidents might happen to him, going 
home at night ; eh ? Sir Hugo ? 

G. H. If he would but come my way ! 

For ( the mule it was slow, and the lane it was 

dark, 
'When out of the copse leapt a gallant young 

spark, 
f Says, ' 'Tis not for nought you've been begging 

all day : 
' ' So remember your toll, since you travel our 

way." 

Abbot. Hush ! Here comes the Landgrave. 

Lewis enters. 

Lew. Good morrow, gentles. Why so warm, Count 
Walter? 
Your blessing, Father Abbot : what deep matters 
Have called our worships to this conference? 

O. H. [Aside.'] Up, Count ; you are spokesman. 

Zrd Count. Most exalted Prince, 

Whose peerless knighthood, like the remeant sun, 
After too long a night, regilds our clay, 



88 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

Late silvered by the reflex lunar beams 
Of your celestial lady's matron graces — 

Abbot [Aside.] Ut vinum optimum amati mei 
Dulciter descendens! 

Zrd Count. Think not we mean to praise or disap- 
prove^ — 
The acts of saintly souls must only plead 
In foro conscientiae : grosser minds, 
Whose humbler aim is but the public weal, 
Know of no mesh which holds them : yet, great prince, 
Some dare not see their sovereign's strength postponed 
To private grace, and sigh, that generous hearts, 
And ladies' tenderness, too oft forgetting 
That wisdom is the highest charity, 
"Will interfere, in pardonable haste, 
With heaven's stern providence. 

Lew. We see your drift. 

Go, sirrah, [To a Page] pray the Princess to illumine 
Our conclave with her beauties. 'Tis our manner 
To hear no cause, of gentle or of simple, 
Unless the accused and the accuser both 
Meet face to face. 

3rd Count. Excuse, high -mightiness, — 

We bring no accusation ; facts, your Highness, 
Wait for your sentence, not our prasjudicium. 

Lew. Give us the facts, then, sir; in the lady's pre- 
sence, 
Her nearness to ourselves — perchance her reasons* — 
May make them somewhat dazzling. 

Abb. - Nay, my Lord ; 

I, as a Churchman, though with these your nobles 
Both in commission and opinion one, 
Am yet most loth, my lord, to set my seal 
To aught which this harsh world might call complaint 
Against a princely saint — a chosen vessel — 
An argosy celestial — in whom error 
Is but the young luxuriance of her grace. 
The Count of Yarila, as bound to neither, 



scene viii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 89 

For both shall speak, and all which late has passed 
Upon the matter of this famine open. 

C. Wal. Why, if I must speak out — then I'll confess 
To have stood by, and seen the Landgravine 
Do most strange deeds ; and in her generation 
Show no more wit than other babes of light. 
First, she has given away, to starving rascals, 
The stores of grain, she might have sold, good lack ! 
For any price she asked; has pawned your jewels, 
And mortgaged sundry farms, and all for food. 
Has sunk vast sums in fever-hospitals, 
For rogues whom famine sickened — almshouses 
For sluts whose husbands died — schools for their brats. 
Most sad vagaries ! but there's worse to come. 
The dulness of the Court has ruined trade : 
The jewellers and clothiers don't come near us ; 
The sempstresses, my lord, and pastrycooks 
Have quite forgot their craft ; she has turned all heads, 
And made the ladies starve, and wear old clothes, 
And run about with her to nurse the sick, 
Instead of putting gold in circulation 
By balls, sham-fights, and dinners ; 'tis most sad, sir, 
But she has swept your treasury out as clean — 
As was the widow's cruse, who fed Elijah. 

Lew. Ruined, no doubt! Lo! here the culprit 
comes. [Elizabeth enters. 

Come hither, dearest. These, my knights and nobles, 
Lament your late unthrift ; (your conscience speaks 
The causes of their blame ;) and wish you warned, 
As wisdom is the highest charity, 
No more to interfere, from private feeling 
With heaven's stern laws, or maim the sovereign's 

wealth, 
To save superfluous villains' worthless lives. 

Eliz. Lewis! 

Lew. Not I, fair, but my counsellors, 

In courtesy, need some reply. 

Eliz. My Lords ; 



90 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

Doubtless, you speak but as your duty bids you : 

I know you love rny husband : do you think 

My love is less than yours? 'Twas for his honour 

I dared not lose a single silly sheep 

Of all the flock which God had trusted to him. 

True, I had hoped by this — No matter what — 

Since to your sense it bears a different hue. 

I keep no logic. For my gifts, thank God, 

They cannot be recalled ; for those poor souls, 

My pensioners — even for my husband's knightly name. 

Oh ! ask not back that slender loan of comfort 

My folly has procured them : if, my Lords, 

My public censure, or disgraceful penance 

May expiate, and yet confirm my waste, 

I offer this poor body to the buffets 

Of sternest justice : where I dared not spare 

My husband's lands, I dare not spare myself. 

Lew. No! no! My noble sister ? "What? my Lords! 
If her love move you not, her wisdom may. 
She knows a deeper statecraft, Sirs, than you ; 
She will not throw away the substance, Abbot, 
To save the accident ; waste living souls 
To keep, or hope to keep, the means of life. 
Our wisdom and our swords may fill our coffers, 
But will they breed us men, my Lords, or mothers ? 
God blesses in the camp a noble rashness : 
Then why not in the storehouse? He that lends 
To Him, need never fear to lose his venture. 
Spend on, my Queen. You will not sell my castles ? 
Nay, you must leave us Neuburg, love, and Wartburg. 
Their worn old stones will hardly pay the carriage, 
And foreign foes may pay untimely visits. 

C. Wal. And home foes, too : if these philosophers 
Put up the curb, my Lord, a half-link tighter, 
The scythes will be among our horses' legs 
Before next harvest. 

Lev:. Fear not for our welfare : 

We have a guardian here, well skilled to keep 
Peace for our seneschal, while angels, stooping 
To catch the tears she sheds for us in absence, 









scene vin.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 91 

Will sain us from the roaming adversary 
With scents of Paradise. Farewell, my Lords. 

Eliz. Nay, — I must pray your knighthoods — You 
must honour 
Our dais and bower as private guests to-day. 
Thanks for your gentle warning ; may my weakness 
To such a sin be never tempted more ! 

[Exeunt Elizabeth and Lewis. 

C. Wal. Thus, as if virtue were not its own reward, 
is it paid over and above with beef and ale ? Weep 
not tender-hearted Count ! Though ' ' generous hearts," 
my Lord, " and ladies' tenderness, too oft forget" — 
Truly spoken! Lord Abbot, does not your spiritual 
eye discern coals of fire on Count Hugo's head ? 

C. Hugo. Where, and a plague? Where? 

C. Wal. Nay, I spake mystically, — there is nought 
there but what beer will quench before nightfall. 
Here, peeping rabbit, [To a Page at the door,] out of 
your burrow, and show these gentles to their lodgings. 
We will meet at the gratias. 

[They go out. 

C. Wal. [Alone.] Well: — if Hugo is a brute, he at 
least makes no secret of it. He is an old boar, and 
honest ; he wears his tushes outside, for a warning to 
all men. But for the rest! — : Whited sepulchres! and 
not one of them but has half persuaded himself of his 
own benevolence. Of all cruelties, save me from your 
small pedant, — your closet philosopher, who has just 
courage enough to bestride his theory, without wit to 
see whither it will carry him. In experience — a child : 
in obstinacy a woman : in nothing a man, but in logic- 
chopping: instead of God's grace, a few schoolboy 
saws about benevolence, and industry, and independ- 
ence — there is his metal. If the world will be mended 
on his principles, well. If not, poor world! — but prin- 
ciples must be carried out, though through blood and 
famine: for truly, man was made for theories, not 
theories for man. A doctrine is these men's God — 
touch but that shrine, and lo ! your simpering philan- 
thropist becomes as ruthless as a Dominican. [Exit, 



92 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 



Scene IX. 

Elizabeth's Bower. Elizabeth and Lewis sitting 
together. 

SONG. 

Elk. Oh ! that we two were Maying 

Down the stream of the soft spring breeze ; 
Like children with violets playing 
In the shade of the whispering trees. 

Oh ! that we two sat dreaming 

On the sward of some sheep -trimmed down, 

Watching the white mist steaming 

Over river and mead and town. 

Oh ! that we two lay sleeping 

In our nest in the churchyard sod, 

With our limbs at rest on the quiet earths 

breast, 
And our souls at home with God ! 

Lew, Ah, turn away those swarthy diamonds' blaze ! 
Mine eyes are dizzy, and my faint sense reels 
In the rich fragrance of those purple tresses. 
Oh, to be thus, and thus, day after day ! 
To sleep, and wake, and find it yet no dream — 
My atmosphere, my hourly food, such bliss 
As to have dreamt of, five short years agone, 
Had seemed a mad conceit. 

Eliz. Five years agone ? 

Lew. I know not ; for upon our marriage-day 
I slipped from time into eternity ; 
Where each day teems with centuries of life, 
And centuries were but one wedding morn. 

Eliz. Lewis, I am too happy ! floating higher 
Than e'er my will had dared to soar, though able ; 
But circumstance, which is the will of God, 
Beguiled my cowardice to that, which, darling, 



scene ix.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 93 

I found most natural, when I feared it most. 
Love would have had no strangeness in mine eyes, 
Save from the prejudice which others taught me — 
They should know best. Yet now this wedlock seems 
A second infancy's baptismal robe, 
A heaven, my spirit's antenatal home, 
Lost in blind pining girlhood — found now, found ! 
[Aside.] What have I said ? Do I blaspheme ? Alas ! 
I neither made these thoughts, nor can unmake them. 

Leiv. Ay, marriage is the life-long miracle, 
The self-begetting wonder, daily fresh ; 
The Eden, where the spirit and the flesh 
Are one again, and new-born souls walk free, 
And name in mystic language all things new, 
Naked, and not ashamed. [Eliz. hides her face. 

Eliz. Oh ! God ! were that true ! 

[Clasps him round the neck. 
There, there, no more — 

I love thee, and I love thee, and I love thee — 
More than rich thoughts can dream, or mad lips 

speak ; 
But how, or why, whether with soul or body, 
I will not know. Thou art mine. — Why question 

further ? 
[Aside.] Ay if I fall by loving, I will love, 
And be degraded ! — how ? by my own troth plight ? 
No, but by thinking that I fall. — 'Tis written 
That whatsoe'er is not of faith is sin. — 
Oh ! Jesu Lord ! Hast Thou not made me thus ? 
Mercy ! My brain will burst : I cannot leave him ! 

Lew. Beloved, if I went away to war — 

Eliz. Oh, God ! More wars ? More partings ? 

Lew. Nay, my sister — 

My trust but longs to glory in its surety : 
What would'st thou do ? 

Eliz. What I have done already. 

Have I not followed thee, through drought and frost, 
Through flooded swamps, rough glens, and wasted 
lands, 



94 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

Even while I panted most with thv dear loan 
Of double life ? 

Lev:. My saint! but what if I bid thee 

To be my seneschal, and here with prayers, 
With sober thrift, and noble bounty shine, 
Alone and peerless ? And suppose — nay, start not — 
I only said suppose — the war was long, 
Our camps far off, and that some winter, love, 
Or two, pent back this Eden stream, w r here now 
Joys upon joys like sunlit ripples pass, 
Alike, yet ever new. — What would'st thou do, love ? 

Eliz. A year ? A year ! A cold, blank, widowed 
year ! 
Strange, that mere words should chill my heart with 
fear — 

This is no hall of doom, 
No impious Soldan's feast of old, 
"Where o'er the madness of the foaming gold, 
A fleshless hand its woe on tainted walls enrolled. 
Yet by thy wild words raised, 
In Love's most careless revel, 
Looms through the future's fog a shade of evil, 
And all my heart is glazed. — 
Alas ! What would I do ? 
I would lie down and weep, and weep, 
Till the salt current of my tears should sweep 
My soul, like floating weed, adown a fitful sleep, 

A lingering half- night through. 
Then when the mocking bells did wake 
My hollow eyes to twilight gray, 
I would address my spiritless limbs to pray, 
And nerve myself with stripes to meet the weary day 
And labour for thy sake. 
Until by vigils, fasts and tears, 
The flesh was grown so spare and light, 
That I could slip its mesh, and flit by night 
O'er sleeping sea and land to thee — or Christ — till 
morning light. 
Peace ! Why these fears ? 



scene ix.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 95 

Life is too short for mean anxieties : 
Soul ! thou must work, though blindfold. 

Come, beloved, 
I must turn robber. — I have begged of late 
So oft, I fear to ask. — Give me thy purse. 

Leiv. No, not my purse : — stay — Where is all that 
gold 
I gave you, when the Jews came here from Koln ? 

Eliz. Oh, those few coins ? I spent them all next 
day 
On a new chapel on the Eisenthal ; 
There were no choristers but nightingales — 
No teachers there save bees : how long is this ? 
Have you turned niggard ? 

Lew. Nay ; go ask my steward — 

Take what you will — this purse I want myself. 

Eliz. Ah ! now I guess. You have some trinket for 
me — 
You promised late to buy no more such baubles — 
And now you are ashamed. — Nay, I must see — 

[Snatches his purse. Lewis hides his face. 
Ah, God ! what's here ? A new crusader's cross ? 
Whose ? Nay, nay — turn not from me ; — I guess all — 
You need not tell me : it is very well — 
According to the meed of my deserts : 
Yes — very well. 

Lew. . Ah ! love — look not so calm — 

Eliz. Fear not — I shall weep soon. 

How long is it since you vowed ? 

Lew. A week or more. 

Eliz. Brave heart ! And all that time your tender- 
ness 
Kept silence, knowing my weak foolish soul. [ Weeps. 
Oh, love ! Oh, life ! Late found, and soon, soon lost ! 
A bleak sunrise, — a treacherous morning gleam, — 
And now, ere mid-day, all my sky is black 
With whirling drifts once more ! The march is fixed 
For this day month, is't not ? 

Lew. Alas, too true ! 



96 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act n. 

Eliz. break not, heart ! [Conrad enters. 

Ah ! here my master comes, 
No weeping before him. 

Lew. Speak to the holy man : 

He can give strength and comfort, which poor I 
Need even more than you. Here, saintly master, 
I leave her to your holy eloquence. Farewell ! 
God help us both ! [Exit Lewis. 

Eliz. (Rising.) You know, Sir, that my husband has 
taken the cross ? 

Con. I do ; all praise to God ! 

Eliz. But none to you : 

Hard-hearted ! Am I not enough your slave ? 
Can I obey you more when he is gone 
Than now I do ? Wherein, pray, has he hindered 
This holiness of mine, for which you make me 
Old ere my womanhood ! [Conrad offers to go. 

Stay, Sir, and tell me 
Is this the out-come of your "father's care? " 
Was it not enough to poison all my joys 
With foulest scruples? — show me nameless sins, 
Where I, unconscious babe, blessed God for all things, 
But you must thus intrigue away my night 
And plunge me down this gulf of widowhood ! 
And I not twenty yet — a girl — an orphan — 
That cannot stand alone ! Was I too happy? 
Oh, God ! what lawful bliss do I not buy 
And balance with the smart of some sharp penance? 
Hast thou no pity? None?' Thou drives! me - 
To fiendish doubts : Thou, Jesus' messenger ! 

Con. This to your master ! 

Eliz. This to any one 

Who dares to part me from my love. 

Con. 'Tis well- 

In pity to your weakness I must deign 
To do what ne'er I did — excuse myself. 
I say, I knew not of your husband's purpose ; 
God's spirit, not I, moved him : perhaps I sinned 
In that I did not urge it myself. 



scene ix.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 97 

Eliz. Thou traitor ! 

So thou would'st part us ? 

Con. Aught that makes thee greater 

I'll dare, this very outburst proves in thee 
Passions unsanctified, and carnal leanings 
Upon the creatures thou would'st fain transcend. 
Thou badest me cure thy weakness. Lo, God brings 

thee 
The tonic cup I feared to mix : — be brave — 
Drink it to the lees, and thou shalt find within 
A pearl of price. 

Eliz. 'Tis bitter! 

Con. Bitter, truly: 

Even I, to whom the storm of earthly love 
Is but a dim remembrance — Courage ! Courage ! 
There's glory in't ; fulfil thy sacrifice ; 
Give up thy noblest on the noblest service 
God's sun has looked on, since the chosen twelve 
Went conquering, and to conquer, forth. If he fall — 

Eliz. Oh, spare mine ears ! 

Con, He falls a blessed martyr, 

To bid thee welcome through the gates of pearl ; 
And next to his shall thine own guerdon be 
If thou devote him willing to thy God. 
Wilt thou? 

Eliz. Have mercy ! 

Con. Wilt thou ? Sit not thus 

Watching the sightless air : no angel in it 
But asks thee what I ask : the fiend alone 
Delays thy coward flesh. Wilt thou devote him? 

Eliz. I will devote him ; — a crusader's wife ! 
I'll glory in it. Thou speakest words from God — 
And God shall have him ! Go now — good, my master ; 
My poor brain swims. [Exit Conrad. 

Yes — a crusader's wife ! 
And a crusader's widow ! 
[Bursts into tears, and dashes Tier self on the floor. ,] 



98 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 



Scene X. 

A Street in the Town of Schmalcald. Bodies of 
Crusading Troops defiling past. Lewis and Eli- 
zabeth with their Suite in the foreground. 

Lew. Alas ! the time is near ; I must be gone — 
There are our liegemen ; how you'll welcome us, 
Returned in triumph, bowed with paynim spoils, 
Beneath the victor cross, to part no more ! 

Eliz. Yes — we shall part no more, where next we 
meet. 
Enough to have stood here once on such an errand ! 

Lev:. The bugle calls. — Farewell, my love, my lady, 
Queen, sister, saint ! One last long kiss. — -Farewell ! 
Eliz. One kiss — and .then another — and another — 
Till 'tis too late to go — and so return — 
Oh God ! forgive that craven thought ! There, take 

him 
Since Thou dost need him. I have kept him ever 
Thine, when most mine ; and shall I now deny Thee ? 
Oh ! go — yes, go — Thou'lt not forget to pray, 

[Lewis goes. 
"With me, at our old hour ? Alas ! he's gone 
And lost — thank God he hears me not — for ever. 
Why look'st thou so, poor girl ? I say, for ever. 
The day I found the bitter blessed cross, 
Something did strike my heart like keen cold steel, 
"Which quarries daily there -with dead dull pains^- 
"Whereby I know that we shall meet no more. 
Come ! Home, maids, home ! Prepare me widow's 

weeds — 
For he is dead to me, and I must soon 
Die too to him, and many things ; and mark me — 
Breathe not his name, lest this love-pampered heart 
Should sicken to vain yearnings— : Lost ! lost ! lost ! 
Lady. Oh stay, and watch this pomp. 
Eliz. "Well said — we'll stay; so this bright enter- 
prise 



scene x.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 99 

Shall blanch our private clouds, and steep our soul 
Drunk with the spirit of great Christendom. 

Crusader Chorus. 

[Men at Arms pass singing.] 

The tomb of God before us, 

Our fatherland behind, 

Our ships shall leap o'er billows steep, 

Before a charmed wind. 

Above our van great angels 

Shall fight along the sky ; 

While martyrs pure and crowned saints, 

To God for rescue cry. 

The red-cross knights and yeomen 
Throughout the holy town, 
In faith and might, on left and right, 
Shall tread the paynim down. 

Till on the Mount Moriah 
The Pope of Rome shall stand ; 
The Kaiser and the King of France 
Shall guard him on each hand. 

There shall he rule all nations, 
With crozier and with sword ; 
And pour on all the heathen, 
The wrath of Christ the Lord. 

[ Women — bystanders.] 

Christ is a rock in the bare salt land, 

To shelter our knights from the sun and sand ; 

Christ the Lord is a summer sun, 

To ripen the grain while they are gone. 

Then you who fight in the bare salt land, 
And you who work at home, 
Fight and work for Christ the Lord, 
Until His kingdom come. 
e2 



100 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act ii. 

[Old Knights pass.] 

Our stormy sun is sinking ; 
Our sands are running low ; 
In one fair fight, before the night, 
Our hard- worn hearts shall glow. 

"We cannot pine in cloister ; 

We cannot fast and pray ; 

The sword which built our load of guilt, 

Must wipe that guilt away. 

"We know the doom before us ; 
The dangers of the road ; 
Have mercy, mercy, Jesu blest, 
"When we lie low- in blood. 

When we lie gashed and gory, 
The holy walls within, 
Sweet Jesu, think upon our end, 
And wipe away our sin. 

[Boy Crusaders pass.] 

The Christ-child sits on high ; 
He looks through the merry blue sky ; 
He holds in His hand a bright lily-band, 
For the boys who for Him die. 

On holy Mary's arm, 

Wrapt safe from terror and harm, 

Lulled by the breeze in the paradise trees, 

Their souls sleep soft and warm. 

Knight David, young and true, 

The giant Soldan slew, 

And our arms so light, for the Christ-child's 

right, 
Like noble deeds can do. 






scene x.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 101 

[ Young Knights pass.] 

The rich East blooms fragrant before us ; 

All Fairy-land beckons us forth ; 

We must follow the crane in her flight o'er the main, 

From the posts and the moors of the North. 

Our sires in the youth of the nations 
Swept westward through plunder and blood, 
But a holier quest calls us back to the East, 
We fight for the kingdom of God. 

Then shrink not, and sigh not, fair ladies, 

The red cross which flames on each arm and each 

shield, 
Through philtre and spell, and the black charms of 

hell, 
Shall shelter our true love in camp and in field. 

[Old Monk looking after them.] 

Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! 

The burying place of God t 

Why gay and bold, in steel and gold, 

O'er the paths where Christ hath trod ? 

[The Scene closes. 



102 



THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 



[act nr. 



ACT III. 

Scene I. 

A Chamber in the Wartburg, Elizabeth sitting in 
Widow's weeds ; G-uta and Isentkudis by her. 

Isen. What? Always thus, my princess? Is this 
wise, 
By day with fasts, and ceaseless coil of labour ; 
About the ungracious poor — hands, eyes, feet, brain, 
O'ertasked alike — 'mid sin and filth, which make 
Each sense a plague — by night with cruel stripes, 
And weary watchings on the freezing stone, 
To double all your griefs, and burn life's candle, 
As village gossips say, at either end ? 
The good book bids the heavy-hearted drink, 
And so forget their woe. 

Eliz. Tis written too 

In that same book, nurse, that the days shall come, 
When the bridegroom shall be caken away — and 

then — 
Then shall they mourn and fast : I needed weaning 
Erom sense and earthly joys ; by this way only 
May I win God to leave in mine own hands 
My luxury's cure : oh ! I may bring him back, 
By working out to its fall depth the chastening 
The need of which his loss proves : I but barter 
Less grief for greater — pain for widowhood. 

Isen. And death for life — your cheeks are wan and 
sharp 
As any three-days' moon — you are shifting always 
Uneasily and stiff, now, on your seat, 
As from some secret pain. 

Eliz. Why watch me thus ? 

You cannot know — and yet you know too much — 
I tell you, nurse, pain's comfort, when the flesh 



scene i.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 103 

Aches with the aching soul in harmony, 
And even in woe, we are one : the heart must speak 
Its passion's strangeness in strange symbols out, 
Or boil, till it bursts inly. 

Guta. Yet, methinks, 

You might have made this widowed solitude 
A holy rest — a spell of soft grey weather, 
Beneath whose fragrant dews all tender thoughts 
Might bud and burgeon. 

Eliz. That's a gentle dream ; 

But nature shows nought like it : every winter, 
When the great sun has turned his face away, 
The earth goes down into the vale of grief, 
And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables, 
Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay — 
Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses — 
As I may yet ! — 

Isen. There, now — my foolish child ! 

You faint : come — come to your chamber — 

Eliz. Oh, forgive me ! 

But hope at times throngs in so rich and full, 
It mads the brain like wine : come with me, nurse, 
Sit by me, lull me calm with gentle tales 
Of noble ladies wandering in the wild wood, 
Fed on chance earth-nuts, and wild strawberries, 
Or milk of silly sheep, and woodland doe. 
Or how fair Magdalen 'mid desert sands * 
Wore out in prayer her lonely blissful years, 
Watched by bright angels, till her modest tresses 
Wove to her pearled feet their golden shroud. 
Come, open all your lore. 

[Sophia and Agnes enter.] 

My mother-in-law ! 
{Aside.] Shame on thee, heart ! why sink, whene'er 
we meet ? 

Soph. Daughter, we know of old thy strength, of 
metal 
Beyond us worldlings : shrink not, if the time 
Be come which needs its use — 



104 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act hi. 

Eliz. "What means this preface ? Ah i your looks 
are big 
"With sudden woes — speak out. 

Soph. Be calm, and hear 

The will of God toward my son, thy husband. 

Eliz. "What ? is he captive ? "Why then — what of 
that? 
There are friends will rescue him — there's gold for 

ransom — 
We'll sell our castles — live in bowers of rushes — 
Oh God ! that I were with him in the dungeon ! 
Soph. He is not taken. 

Eliz. No ! he would have fought to the death ! 
There's treachery ! "What paynim dog dare face 
His lance, who naked braved yon lion's rage, 
And eyed the cowering -monster to his den ? 
Speak ! Has he fled ? or worse ? 
Soph. Child, he is dead. 

Eliz. [Clasping her hands on her hiees.] The world 

is dead to me, and all its smiles ! 
Isen. Oh, woe ! my prince ! and doubly woe, my 
daughter ! 

[Elizabeth springs up and rushes out. 
Oh, stop her — stop my child ! She will go mad — 
Dash herself down — Fly — Fly — She is not made 
Of hard, light stuff, like you. 

[Isextkudis and Guta run out. 
Soph. I had expected some such passionate out- 
break 
At the first news : yon see now, Lady Agnes, 
These saints, who fain would ' wean themselves from 

earth, ' 
Still yield to the affections they despise 
"When the game's earnest — Now — ere they return — 

Your brother, child, is dead 

Agnes. I know it too well ! 

So young — so brave — so blest I- 1 And she — she loved 
him — 






scene I.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 105 

Oh ! I repent of all the foolish scoffs 
With which I crossed her. 

Soph. Yes — the Landgrave's dead — 

Attend to me— Alas ! my son ! my son ! 
He was my first-born ! But he has a brother — 
Agnes ! we must not let this foreign gipsy, 
"Who, as you see, is scarce her own wits' mistress, 
Flaunt sovereign over us, and our broad lands, 
To my son's prejudice — There are barons, child, 
Who will obey a knight, but not a saint : 
I must at once to them. 

Agnes. Oh, let me stay ! 

Soph. As you shall please — Your brother's land- 
gravate 
Is somewhat to you, surely — and your smiles 
Are worth gold pieces in a court intrigue. 
For her, on her own principles, a downfal 
Is a chastening mercy — and a likely one. 
Agnes. Oh ! let me stay, and comfort her ! 
Soph. Romance ! 

You girls adore a scene — as lookers on. 

[Exit Sophia. 
Agnes. [Alone.] We]l spoke the old monks, peaceful 
watching life's turmoil, 
' Eyes which look heaven-ward, weeping still we see : 
' God's love with keen flame purges, like the lightning 

flash, 
' Gold which is purest, purer still must be.' 

[Guta enters.] 
Alas ! Returned alone ! Where has my sister been ? 
Guta. Thank heaven, you hear alone, for such sad 
sight would haunt 
Henceforth your young hopes — crush your shuddering 

fancy down 
With dread of like fierce anguish. 
Agnes. Speak ! Oh, speak ! 

Guta. You saw her bound forth : we towards her 
bower in haste 

£ 3 



106 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act hi. 

Ran trembling : spell -bound there, before her bridal- 
bed 
She stood, while wan smiles nickered, like the northern 

dawn, 
Across her worn cheek's ice-field ; keenest memories 

then 
Rushed with strong shudderings through her — as the 

winged shaft 
Springs from the tense nerve, so her passion hurled 

her forth, 
Sweeping, like fierce ghost, on through hall and 

corridor, 
Tearless, with wide eyes staring, while a ghastly wind 
Moaned on through roof and rafter, and the empty 

helms 
Along the walls rang clattering, and above her waved 
Dead heroes' banners : swift and yet more swift she 

drove 
Still seeking aimless ; sheer against the opposing wall 
At last dashed reckless — there with frantic fingers 

clutched 
Blindly the ribbed oak, till that frost of rage 
Dissolved itself in tears, and like a babe, 
"With inarticulate moans, and folded hands, 
She followed those who led her, as if the sun 
On her life's dial had gone back seven years, 
And she were once again the dumb sad child 
We knew her ere she married. 

Isen. [entering.'] As- after wolf wolf presses, leaping 

through the snow-glades, 
So woe on woe throngs surging up. 

Guta. What ? treason ? 

Isen. Treason, and of the foulest. From her state 

she's rudely thrust ; 
Her keys are seized ; her weeping babies pent from 

her : 
The wenches stop their sobs to sneer askance, 
And greet their fallen censor's new mischance. 
Agnes. Alas ! Who dared to do this wrong? 



scene i.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 107 

Isen. Your mother and your mother's son — 
Judge you, if it was knightly done. 

Guta. See ! see ! she comes, with heaving breast, 
With bursting eyes, and purpled brow : 
Oh that the traitors saw her now ! 
They know not, sightless fools, the heart they break. 

[Elizabeth enters slowly. ,] 

Eliz. He is in purgatory now ! Alas ! 
Angels ! be pitiful ! deal gently with him ! 
His sins were gentle ! That's one cause left for 

living — 
To pray, and pray for him : why all these months 
I prayed, — and here's my answer : Dead of a fever ! 
"Why thus ? so soon ! Only six years for love ! 
While any formal, heartless matrimony, 
Patched up by Court intrigues, and threats of cloisters, 
Drags on for six times six, and peasant slaves 
Grow old on the same straw, and hand in hand 
Slip from life's oozy bank, to float at ease. 

[A knocking at the door. 
That's some petitioner. 
Go to — I will not hear them : why should I work, 
When he is dead ? Alas ! was that my sin ? 
Was he, not Christ, my lode-star ? Why not warn 

me? 
Too late ! What's this foul dream ? Dead at Otranto — 
Parched by Italian suns — no woman by him — 
He was too chaste ! Nought but rude men to nurse ! — 
If I had been there, I should have watched by him — 
Guessed every fancy — God ! I might have saved him ! 
[A servant-man bursts in. 
Servant. Madam, the Landgrave gave me strict com- 
mands — 
Isen. The Landgrave, dolt ? 

Eliz. I might have saved him ! 

Servant, [to Isen.] Ay, saucy madam ! — 

The Landgrave Henry, lord and master, 
Freer than the last, and yet no waster, 



108 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act in. 

Who will not stint a poor knave's beer, 
Or spin out Lent through half the year. 
Why — I see double I 

Eliz. Who spoke there of the Landgrave ? What's 
this drunkard ? 
Give him his answer — 'Tis no time for mumming — 

Serv. The Landgrave Henry bade me see you out 
Safe through his gates, and that at once, my Lady. 
Come ! 

Eliz. Why — that's hasty — I must take my children — 
Ah ! I forgot — they would not let me see them. 
I must pack up my jewels — 

Serv. You'll not need it — 

His Lordship has the keys. 

Eliz. He has indeed. 

Why, man ! — I am thy children's godmother — 
I nursed thy wife myself in the black sickness — ■ 
Art thou a bird, that when the old tree falls, 
Flits off, and sings in the sapling ? 

[The man seizes Tier arm. 
Keep thine hands off — 
I'll not be shamed — Lead on. Farewell, my Ladies. 
Follow not ! There's want to spar? on earth already ; 
And mine own woe is weight enough for me. 
Go back, and say, Elizabeth has yet 
Eternal homes, built deep in poor men's hearts ; 
And, in the alleys underneath the wall, 
Has bought with sinful mammon heavenly treasure, 
More sure than adamant, purer than white whales' 

bone, 
Which now she claims. Lead on : a people's love shall 
right me. [Exit with servant. 

Guta. Where now, dame ? 

Isen. Where, but after her ? 

Guta. True heart ! 
I'll follow to the death. - [Exeunt. 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 109 



Scene II. 

A Street. Elizabeth and G-uta at the door of a 
Convent. Monks in the Porch. 

Eliz. You are afraid to shelter me — afraid. 
And so you thrust me forth, to starve and freeze. 
Soon said. "Why palter o'er these mean excuses, 
Which tempt me to despise you ? 

Monks. Ah ! my lady, 

"We know your kindness — but we poor religious — 
Are bound to obey God's ordinance, and submit 
Unto the powers that be, who have forbidden 
All men, alas ! to give you food or shelter. 

Eliz. Silence ! I'll go. Better in God's hand than 
man's. 
He shall kill us, if we die. This bitter* blast 
Warping the leafless willows, yon white snow-storms, 
Whose wings, like vengeful angels, cope the vault, 
They are God's, — We'll trust to them. 

[Monks go in. 

Guta. Mean-spirited ! 

Fair frocks hide foul hearts. Why their altar now 
Is blazing with your gifts. 

Eliz. How long their altar ? 

To God I gave — and God shall pay me back. 
Fool ! to have put my trust in living man, 
And fancied that I bought God's love, by buying 
The greedy thanks of these His earthly tools ! 
Well — here's one lesson learnt ! I thank thee, Lord ! 
Henceforth I'll straight to Thee, and to Thy poor. 
What ? Isentrudis not returned ? Alas ! 
Where are those children ? 

They will not have the heart to keep them from me — 
Oh ! have the traitors harmed them ? 

Guta. Do not think it. 

The dowager has a woman's heart. 

Eliz. Ay, ay — 



110 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act in. 

But she's a mother — and mothers will dare all things — 
Oh ! Love can make us fiends, as well as angels. 
My babies ! Weeping ? Oh have mercy, Lord ! 
On me heap all thy wrath — I understand it : 
What can blind senseless terror do for them ? 

Guta. Plead, plead your penances ! Great God, 

consider 
All she has done and suffered, and forbear 
To smite her like a worlding ? 

Eliz. Silence, girl ! 

I'd plead my deeds, if mine own character, 
My strength of will had fathered them : but no — 
They are His, who worked them in me, in despite 
Of mine own selfish and luxurious wiD — - 
Shall I bribe Him with His own? For pain, I tell 

thee 
I need more pain than mine own will inflicts, 
Pain which shall break that will. — Yet spare them, 

Lord ! 
Go to — I am a fool to wish them life — 
And greater fool to miscall life, this headache — 
This nightmare of our gross and crude digestion — 
This fog which steams up from our freezing clay — 
While waking heaven's beyond. No ! slay them, 

traitors ! 
Cut through the channels of those innocent breaths 
Whose music charmed my lone nights, ere they learn 
To love the "world, and hate the wretch who bore 

them! [Weeps. 

Guta. This storm will blind us both : come here, and 

shield you 
Behind this buttress. 

Eliz. What's a wind to me ? 

I can see up the street here, if they come — 
They do not come ! — Oh ! my poor weanling lambs — 
Struck dead by carrion ravens ! 
What then, I have borne worse.' But yesterday 
I thought I had a husband — and now — now ! 
Guta ! He called a holy man before he died ? 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. Ill 

Chita. The Bishop of Jerusalem, 'tis said, 
With holy oil, and with the blessed body 
Of Him for whom he died, did speed him duly 
Upon his heavenward flight. 

Eliz. Oh happy bishop ! 

Where are those children ? If I had but seen him : 
I could have borne all then. One word — one kiss ! 
Hark ! What's that rushing ! White doves — one — 

two — three — 
Fleeing before the gale. — My children's spirits ! 
Stay, babies — stay for me ! What ! Not a moment ? 
And I so nearly ready to be gone ? 

Guta. Still on your children ? 

Eliz. Oh ! this grief is light 

And floats a-top — well, well ; it hides awhile 
That gulf too black for speech — My husband's dead ! 
I dare not think on't. 

A small bird dead in the snow! Alas ! poor minstrel!. 
A week ago, before this very window, 
He warbled, may be, to the slanting sunlight ; 
And housewives blest him for a merry singer : 
And now he freezes at their doors, like me. 
Poor foolish brother ! didst thou look for payment ? 

Guta. But thou hast light in darkness — He has 
none — 
The bird's the sport of time, while our life's floor 
Is laid upon eternity ; no crack in it 
But shows the underlying heaven. 

Eliz. Art sure ? 

Does this look like it, girl ! No — I'll trust yet — 
Some have gone mad for less ; but why should I ? 
Who live in time, and not eternity. 
'Twill end, girl, end ; no cloud across the sun 
But passes at the last, and gives us back 
The face of God once more. 

Guta. See here they come, 

Dame Isentrudis and your children, all 
Safe down the cliff path, through the whirling snow- 
drifts. 



1J2 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act in. 

Eliz. Oh Lord, my Lord ! I thank Thee ! 
Loving, and merciful, and tenderhearted, 
And even in fiercest wrath remembering mercy. 
Lo ! here's my ancient foe. What want you, Sir? 

[Hugo enters, 

Hugo. Want ? Faith, 'tis you who want, not I, my 
Lady — 
I hear, you are gone a begging through the town ; 
So for your husband's sake, I'll take you in ; 
For though I can't forget your scurvy usage, 
He was a very honest sort of fellow, 
Though mad as a March hare ; so come you in. 

Eliz. But know you, sir, that all my husband's 
vassals 
Are bidden bar their doors to me ? 

Hugo. . I know it : 

And therefore come you in : my house is mine : 
No upstarts shall lay down the law to me ; 
Not they, mass : but mind you, no canting here — 
No psalm-singing ; all candles out at eight : 
Beggars must not be choosers. Come along ! 

Eliz. I thank you, Sir ; and for my children's sake 
I do accept your bounty. [Aside.] Down, proud 

heart — 
Bend lower — lower ever : thus God deals with thee. 
Go, Guta, send the children after me. 

[Exeunt severally. 
- [Two Peasants enter.] 

1st Peas. Here's Father January taken a lease of 
March month, and put in Jack Frost for bailiff. What 
be I to do for spring-feed if the weather holds, — and 
my ryelands as bare as the back of my hand ? 

2nd Peas. That's your luck. Freeze on, say I, and 
may Mary Mother send us snow a yard deep. I have 
ten ton of hay yet to sell — ten ton, man — there's my 
luck : every man for himself, and— Why here comes 
that handsome canting girl, used to be about the 
Princess. 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 113 

[Guta enters.] 

Outa. Well met, fair sirs! I know you kind and 
loyal, 
And bound by many a favour to my mistress : 
Say, will you bear this letter for her sake 
Unto her aunt, the rich and holy lady 
Who rules the nuns of Kitzingen. 

2nd Peas. If I do, pickle me in a barrel among cab - 
bage. 
She told me once, God's curse would overtake me, 
JFor grinding of the poor : her turn's come now. 

Guta. Will you, then, help her ? She will pay you 
richly. 

1st Peas. Ay? How dame? How? Where will the 
money come from? 

Guta. God knows — 

1st Peas. And you do not. 

Guta. Why, but last winter, 

When all your stacks were fired, she lent you gold. 

1st Peas. Well — I'll be generous : as the times are 
hard, 
Say, if I take your letter, will you promise 
To marry me yourself? 

Guta. Ay, marry you, 

Or anything, if you'll but go to-day : 
At once, mind. [Giving 7iim the Letter. 

1st Peas. Ay, I'll go. Now, you'll remember ? 

Guta. Straight to her ladyship at Kitzingen. 
God and his saints deal with you, as you deal 
With us this day. [Exit. 

2nd Peas. What ! art thou fallen in love promis- 
cuously ? 

1st Peas. Why, see, now, man ; she has her mistress' 
ear; 
And if I marry her, no doubt they'll make me 
Bailiff, or land-steward ; and there's noble pickings 
In that same line. 

2nd Peas. Thou hast bought a pig in a poke : 

Her priest will shrive her off from such a bargain. 



114 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act in. 

1st Peas. Dost think? Well— I'll not fret myself 
about it. 
See, now, before I start, I must get home 
Those pigs from off the forest ; chop some furze ; 
And then to get my supper, and my horse's : 
And then a man will need to sit awhile, 
And take his snack of brandy for digestion ; 
And then to fettle up my sword and buckler ; 
And then, bid 'em all good bye : and by that time 
'Twill be most nightfall — I'll just go to-morrow. 
Off — here she comes again. [Exeunt. 

[Isentkudis and GrUTA enter, with the Children.'] 
Quia. I warned you of it; I knew she would not 



An hour, thus treated like a slave — an idiot. 

Isen. Well, 'twas past bearing: so we are thrust 
forth 
To starve again : Are all your jewels gone ? 

Guta. All pawned and eaten — and for her, you 
know, 
She never bore the worth of one day's meal 
About her dress. We can but die — No foe 
Can ban us from that rest. 

Isen. Ay, but these children !— Well — if it must be, 
Here, Guta, pull off this old withered hand 
My wedding-ring ; the man who gave it me 
Should be in heaven — and there he'll know my heart. 
Take it, girl, take it. Where's the princess now? 
She stopped before a crucifix to pray ; 
But why so long? 

Guta. Oh ! prayer, to her rapt soul, 

Is like the drunkenness of the autumn bee, 
Who scent-enchanted, on the latest flower, 
Heedless of cold, will linger listless on, 
And freeze in odorous dreams. , 

Isen. , Ah ! here she comes. 

Guta. Dripping from head to foot with wet and 
mire ! 
How's this ? 



scene II.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 115 

[Elizabeth entering.'] 

Eliz. How? Oh, my fortune rises to full flood: 

I met a friend just now, who told me truths 
Wholesome and stern, of my deceitful heart — 
Would God I had known them earlier! — and enforced 
Her lesson so, as I shall ne'er forget it 
In body or in mind. 

Isen. What means all this ? 

Eliz. You know the stepping-stones across the 
ford: 
There as I passed, a certain aged crone, 
Whom I had fed, and nursed, year after year, 
Met me mid-stream — thrust past me stoutly on — 
And rolled me headlong in the freezing mire. 
There as I lay and weltered, — " Take that, madam, 
For all your selfish hypocritic pride 
Which thought it such a vast humility 
To wash us poor folks' feet, and use our bodies 
For staves to build withal your Jacob's- ladder. 
What ! you would mount to heaven upon our backs ? 
The ass has thrown his rider." She crept on — 
I washed my garments in the brook hard by — 
And came here, all the wiser. 

Guta. Miscreant hag ! 

Isen. Alas, you'll freeze. 

Guta. Who could have dreamt the witch 

Could harbour such a spite ? 

Eliz. Nay, who could dream 

She would have guessed my heart so well ? Dull boors 
See deeper than we think, and hide within 
Those leathern hulls unfathomable truths, 
Which we amid thought's glittering mazes lose. 
They grind among the iron facts of life, 
And have no time for self-deception. 

Isen. Come — 

Put on my cloak — stand here, behind the wall. 
Oh ! is it come to this? She'll die of cold. 

Guta. Ungrateful fiend ! 

Eliz. Let be — we must not think on't. 



116 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act hi. 

The scoff was true — I thank her — I thank God — 
This too I needed. I had built myself 
A Babel-tower, whose top should reach to heaven, 
Of poor men's praise and prayers, and subtle pride 
At mine own alms. 'Tis crumbled into dust! 
Oh ! I have leant upon an arm of flesh — 
And here's its strength ! I'll walk by faith — by faith ! 
And rest my weary heart on Christ alone — 
On Him, the all-sufficient! 
Shame on me ! dreaming thus about myself, 
While you stand shivering here. [To her little Son. 

Art cold, young knight ? 
Knights must not cry — Go slide, and warm thyself. 
Where shall we lodge to-night? 

Isen. There's no place open, 

But that foul tavern, 'where we lay last night. 

Elizabeth's Son, [clinging to her.] Oh, mother, mo- 
ther ! go not to that house — 
Among those fierce lank men, who laughed, and 

scowled, 
And showed their knives, and sang strange ugly songs 
Of you and us. Oh mother ! let us be ! 

Eliz. Hark ! look ! His father's voice ! — his very 
eye- 
Opening so slow and sad, then sinking down 
In luscious rest again ! 

Isen. . Bethink you, child — 

Eliz. Oh yes — I'll think — we'll to our tavern 
friends ; 
If they be brutes, 'twas my sin left them so. 

Guta. 'Tis but for a night or two : three days will 
bring 
The Abbess hither. 

Isen. And then to Bamberg straight 

For knights and men at arms ! Your uncle's wrath— 

Guta. [Aside.] Hush, hush ! you'll fret her, if you 
talk of vengeance. 

Isen, Come to our shelter. 



scene in.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 117 

Children. Oh stay here, stay here ! 

Behind these walls. 

Eliz. Ay — stay awhile in peace. The storms are 
still. 
Beneath her eider robe the patient earth 
Watches in silence for the sun : we'll sit 
And gaze up with her at the changeless heaven, 
Until this tyranny be overpast. 
Come. [Aside.'] Lost! Lost! Lost! 

[They enter a neighbouring Ruin."] 

Scene III. 

A Chamber in the Bishop's Palace at Bamberg, 
Elizabeth and Guta. 

Guta. You have determined ? 

Eliz. Yes — to go with him. 

I have kept my oath too long to break it now. 
I will to Marpurg, and there waste away 
In meditation and in pious deeds, 
Till God shall set me free. 

Guta. How if your uncle 

Will have you marry ? Day and night, they say, 
He talks of nothing else. 

Eliz. Never, girl, never ! 

Save me from that at least, oh, God ! 

Guta. He spoke 

Of giving us, your maidens, to his knights 
In carnal wedlock : but I fear him not : 
For God's own word is pledged to keep me pure — 
I am a maid. 

Eliz. And I, alas ! am none ! 

Oh, Guta ! dost thou mock my widowed love ? 
I was a wife — 'tis true : I was not worthy — 
But there was meaning in that first wild fancy ; 
'Twas but the innocent springing of the sap — 
The witless yearning of an homeless heart — 



118 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act in. 

Do I not know that God has pardoned me ? 

But now — to rouse and turn of mine own will, 

In cool and full foreknowledge, this worn soul 

Again to that, which, when God thrust it on me, 

Bred but one shame of ever-gnawing doubt, 

"Were — No, my burning cheeks ! We'll say no more. 

Ah ! loved and lost ! Though God's chaste grace 

should fail me, 
My weak idolatry of thee would give 
Strength that should keep me true : with mine own 

hands 
I'd mar this tear-worn face, till petulant man 
Should loathe its scarred and shapeless ugliness. 

Guta. But your poor children ? What becomes of 

them? 
Uliz. Oh ! she who' was not worthy of a husband 
Does not deserve his children. What are they, dar- 
lings, 
But snares to keep me from my heavenly spouse 
By picturing the spouse I must forget ? 
Well — 'tis blank horror. Yet if griefs good for me, 
Let me go down into grief's blackest pit, 
And follow out God's cure by mine own deed. 
Guta. What will your kinsfolk think ? 
Eliz. What will they think ? 

What pleases them. That argument's a staff 
Which breaks whene'er you lean on't. Trust me, 

girl, " . v 

That fear of man sucks out love's soaring ether, 
Baffles faith's heavenward eyes, and drops us down, 
To float, like plumeless birds, on any stream. 
Have I not proved it ? 

There was a time with me, when every eye 
Did scorch like flame : if one looked cold on me, 
I straight accused myself of mortal sins : 
Each fopling was my master : I have lied 

From very fear of mine own serving maids. 

That's past, thank God's good grace ! 



scene in.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 119 

Guta. And now you leap 

To the other end of the line. 

Eliz. In self-defence — 

I am too weak to live by half my conscience ; 
I have no wit to weigh and choose the mean ; 
Life is too short for logic ; what I do 
I must do simply ; God alone must judge — 
For God alone shall guide, and God's elect — 
I shrink from earth's chill frosts too much to crawl — 
I have snapped opinion's chains, and now I'll soar 
Up to the blazing sunlight, and be free. 

The Bishop of Bamberg enters. Conrad following. 

Bishop. The Devil plagued St. Antony in the like- 
ness of a lean friar ! Between mad monks and mad 
women, bedlam's broke loose, I think. 

Con, When the spirit first descended on the elect, 
seculars then, too, said mocking, " These men are full 
of new wine." 

Bishop. Seculars, truly ! If I had not in my secula- 
rly picked up a spice of chivalry to the ladies, I should 
long ago have turned out you and your regulars, to 
cant elsewhere. Plague on this gout — I must sit. 

Eliz. Let me settle your cushion, uncle. 

Bishop. So ! girl ! I sent for you from Botenstain. 
I had a mind, now, to have kept you there until your 
wits returned, and you would say Yes to some young 
noble suitor. As if I had not had trouble enough 
about your dower ! — If I had had to fight for it, I 
should not have minded : — but these palavers and con- 
ferences have fretted me into the gout : and now you 
would throw all away again, tired with your toy, I 
suppose. What shall I say to the Counts, Varila, and 
the Cupbearer, and all the noble knights who will 
hazard their lands and lives, in trying to right you 
with that traitor ? I am ashamed to look them in the 
face ! To give all up to the villain ! — To pay him for 
his treason ! 

Eliz. Uncle, I give but what to me is worthless. He 



120 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act hi. 

loves these baubles — let him keep them then : I have 
my dower. 

Bishop. To squander on nuns and beggars, at this 
rogue's bidding ? Why not marry some honest man ? 
You may have your choice of kings and princes ; and 
if you have been happy with one gentleman, Mass ! say 
I, why can't you be happy with another ? What saith 
the Scripture? "I will that the younger widows 
marry, bear children," — not run after monks, and what 
not — What's good for the filly, is good for the mare, 
say I. 

Eliz. Uncle, I soar now at a higher pitch — 
To be henceforth the bride of Christ alone. 

Bishop. Ahem! — a pious notion — in moderation. 
We must be moderate, my child, moderate : I hate 
overdoing anything — especially religion. 

Con. Madam, between your uncle and myself 
This question in your absence were best mooted. 

[Exit Elizabeth. 

Bishop. How, priest ? do you order her about like a 
servant maid ? 

Con. The saints forbid ! Now — ere I lose a mo- 
ment — [Kneeling. 
[Aside.'] All things to all men be — and so save some — 
[JJoitc?.] Forgive, your grace, forgive me, 
If mine unmannered speech in aught have clashed 
With your more tempered and melodious judgment : 
Your courage will forgive an honest warmth. 
God knows, I serve no private interests. 

Bishop. Your order's, hey? to wit? 

Con. My lord, my lord, 

There may be higher aims : but what I said, 
I said but for our Church, and our cloth's honour. 
Ladies' religion, like their love, we know, 
Requires a gloss of verbal exaltation, 
Lest the sweet souls should understand themselves ; 
And clergymen must talk up to the mark. 

Bishop. We all know, Gospel preached in the 
mother-tongue 
Sounds too like common sense. 



scene in.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 121 

Con. Or too unlike it : 

You know the world, your grace ; you know the sex — 

Bishop. Ahem ! As a spectator. 

Con. Philosophice — 

Just so — You know their rage for shaven crowns — 
How they'll deny their God — but not their priest — 
Flirts — scandal-mongers— in default of both come 
Platonic love — worship of art and genius — 
Idols which make them dream of heaven, as girls 
Dream of their sweethearts, when they sleep on bride- 
cake. 
It saves from worse — we are not all Abelards. 

Bishop. [Aside."] Some of us have his tongue, if not 
his face. 

Con. There lies her fancy; do but balk her of it — 
She'll bolt to cloisters, like a rabbit scared. 
Head her from that — she'll wed some pink-faced boy — 
The more low-bred and penniless, the likelier. 
Send her to Marpurg, and her brain will cool. 
Tug at the kite, 'twill only soar the higher : 
Give it but line, my lord, 'twill drop like slate. 
Use but that eagle's glance, whose daring foresight 
In chapter, camp, and council, wins the wonder 
Of timid trucklers — Scan results and outcomes — 
The scale is heavy in your grace's favour. 

Bishop. Bah ! priest \ What can this Marpurg- 
madness do for me ? 

Con. Leave you the tutelage of all her children. 

Bishop. Thank you — to play the drynurse to three 
starving brats. 

Con. The minor's guardian guards the minors' 
lands. 

Bishop. Unless they are pitched away in building 



Con. Instead of fattening in your wisdom's keeping. 
Bishop. Well, well — but what gross scandal to the 

family ! 
Con. The family, my lord, would gain a saint, 
F 



122 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act hi. 

Bishop. Ah ! monk, that canonization costs a fright- 
ful sum. 
Con. Those fees, just now, would gladly be remitted. 
Bishop. These are the last days, faith, when Rome's 

too rich to take ! 
Con. The Saints forbid, my lord, the fisher's see 
"Were so o'ercursed by Mammon ! But you grieve, 
I know, to see foul weeds of heresy 
Of late o'errun your diocese. 

Bishop. Ay, curse them ! 

I've hanged some dozens. 

Con. Worthy of yourself ! 

But yet the faith needs here some mighty triumph — 
Some bright example, whose resplendent blaze 
May tempt that fluttering tribe within the pale 
Of Holy Church again — 

Bishop. To singe their wings 1 

Con. They'll not come near enough. Again — there 
are 
Who dare arraign your prowess, and assert 
A churchman's energies were better spent 
In pulpits, than the tented field. Now mark — 
Mark, what a door is opened. Give but scope 
To this her huge capacity for sainthood — 
Set her, a burning and a shining light 
To all your people. — Such a sacrifice, 
Such loan to God of your own flesh and blood, 
Will silence envious tongues, and prove you wise 
For the next world as for this ; will clear your name 
From calumnies which argue worldliness ; 
Buy of itself the joys of paradise ; 
And clench your lordship's interest with the pontiff. 
Bishop. Well, well, we'll think on't. 
Con. Sir, I doubt you not. 

[Re-enter Elizabeth.] Uncle, I am determined. 
Bishop. So am I. 

You shall to Marpurg with this holy man. 

Eliz. Ah, there you speak again like mine own 
uncle. 
I'll go — to rest [aside] and die. I only wait 



scene iv.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 123 

To see the bones of my beloved laid 
In some fit resting-place. A messenger 
Proclaims them near. Oh God ! 

Bishop. We'll go, my child, 

And meeting them with all due honour, show 
In our own worship, honourable minds. 

[Exit Elizabeth. 

Bishop. A messenger ! How far off are they, then ? 

Serv. Some two days' journey, sir. 

Bishop, Two days' journey, and nought prepared ? 
Here chaplain— Brother Hippodamas ! Chaplain, I 
say ! [Hippodamas enters.'} Call the apparitor — ride 
off with him, right and left. — Don't wait even to take 
your hawk — Tell my knights to be with me, with all 
their men-at-arms, at noon on the second day. Let 
all be of the best, say — the brightest of arms and the 
newest of garments. Mass ! we must show our 
smartest before these crusaders — they'll be full of new 
fashions, I warrant 'em— the monkeys that have seen 
the world. And here, boy — [To a Page.] Set me a 
stoup of wine in the oriel-room, and another for this 
good monk. 

Con. Pardon me, blessedness — but holy rule — 

Bishop. Oh ! I forgot. — A pail of water and a peck 
of beans for the holy man ! — Order up my equerry, 
and bid my armourer — vestryman, I mean — look out 
my newest robes — Plague on this gout ! 

[Exeunt, following the Bishop, 

Scene IV. 

The Nave of Bamberg Cathedral. A Procession entering 
the West Door, headed by Elizabeth and the Bishop, 
Nobles, &c. Religious bearing the Coffin which in- 
closes Lewis's Bones. 

1st Lady. See ! the procession comes — the mob 
streams in 
At every door. Hark ! how the steeples thunder 
Their solemn base above the wailing choir. 
f2 



124 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act hi. 

2nd Lady. They will stop at the screen. 

Knight. And there, as I hear, open the coffin. 
Push forward, ladies, to that pillar : thence you will 
see all. 

1st Peas. Oh dear! oh dear ! Tf any man had told 
me that I should ride forty miles on this errand, to see 
him that went out flesh come home grass, like the 
flower of the field ! 

2nd Peas. We have changed him, but not mended 
him, say I, friend. 

1st Peas. Never we. He knew where a yeoman's 
heart lay ! One that would clap a man on the back 
when his cow died, and behave like a gentleman to 
him — that never met you after a hailstorm without 
lightening himself of a few pocket-burners. 

2nd Peas. Ay, that's your poor-man's-plaster : that's 
your right gTease for this world's creaking wheels. 

1st Peas. Nay, that's your rich man's plaster too, 
and covers the multitude of sins. That's your big- 
pike's swimming-bladder, that keeps him atop and 
feeding : that's his calling and election, his oil of 
anointing, his salvum fac regem, his yeoman of the 
wardrobe, who keeps the velvet-piled side of this world 
uppermost, lest his delicate eyes should see the warp 
that holds it. 

2nd Peas. Who's the warp, then ? 

1st Peas. We, man, the friezes and fustians, that 
rub on till we get frayed through with overwork, and 
then all's abroad, and the nakedness of Babylon is dis- 
covered, and catch who- catch can. 

Old Woman. Pity they only brought his bones home ! 
He would have made a lovely corpse, surely. He was 
a proper man ! 

1st Lady. Oh the mincing step he had with him ! 
and the delicate hand on a horse, fingering the reins 
as St. Cicely does the organ-keys ! 

2nd Lady. And for hunting, another Siegfried. 

Knight. If he was Siegfried the gay, she was Chriem- 



scene iv.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 125 

hild the grim : and as likely to prove a firebrand as 
the girl in the ballad. 

1st Lady. Gay, indeed ! His smiles were like plum- 
cake, the sweeter the deeper iced. I never saw him 
speak civil word \o woman, but to her. 

2iid Lady. Oh, ye Saints ! There was honey spilt 
on the ground ! If I had such a knight, I'd never 
freeze alone on the chamber-floor, like some that never 
knew when they were well off. I'd never elbow him 
off to crusades with my pruderies. 

" Pluck your apples while they're ripe, 
And pull your flowers in May, ! " 
Eh! Mother? 

Old Woman. u Till when she grew wizened, and he 
grew cold, 
The balance lay even 'twixt young and old." 

Monk. Thus Satan bears witness perforce against 
the vanities of Yenus! But what's this babbling? 
Carolationes in the holy place? Tace, vetula! taceas, 
taceto also, and that forthwith. 

Old Woman. Tace in your teeth, and taceas also, 
begging-box ! Who put the halter round his waist to 
keep it off his neck, who? Get behind your screen, 
sirrah! Am I not a burgher's wife? Am I not in 
the nave? Am I not on my own ground? Have I 
brought up eleven children without nurse, wet or dry, 
to be taced now-a-days by friars in the nave ? Help ! 
good folks ! Where be these rooks a going ? 

Knight. The monk has vanished. 

1st Peas. It's ill letting out waters, he finds. Who 
is that old gentleman, sir, holds the Princess so tight 
by the hand ? 

Knight. Her uncle, knave, the Bishop. 

1st Peas. "Very right, he : for she's a'most a born 
natural, poor soul. It was a temptation to deal with 
her. 

2nd Peas. Thou didst cheat her shockingly, Frank, 
time o' the famine, on those nine sacks of maslin meal. 

Knight- Go tell her of it, rascal, and she'll thank 



126 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act hi. 

you for it, and give you a shilling for helping her to a 
" cross." 

Old Woman. Taceing free women in the nave ! 
This comes of your princesses, that turn the world 
upside down, and demean themselves to hob and nob 
with these black baldicoots ! 

Eliz. [In a low voice.] I saw all Israel scattered on 
the hills 
As sheep that have no shepherd ! Oh, my people ! 
"Who crowd with greedy eyes round this my jewel, 
Poor ivory, token of his outward beauty — 
Oh ! had ye known his spirit ! — Let his wisdom 
Inform your light hearts with that Saviour's likeness 
For whom he died ! So had ye kept him with you ; 
And from the coming evils gentle Heaven 
Had not withdrawn the righteous : 'tis too late ! 

1st Lady. There now, she smiles ; do you think she 
ever loved him ? 

Knight. Never creature, but mealy-mouthed inqui- 
sitors, and shaven singing birds. She looks now as 
glad to be rid of him as any colt broke loose. 

1st Lady. What will she do now, when this farce is 
over ? 

2nd Lady. Found an abbey, that's the fashion, and 
elect herself abbess — set up the first week for queen- 
of-all-souls — tyrannize over hysterical girls, who are 
forced to thank her for making them miserable, and so 
die a saint. 

Knight. Will you pray to her, my fair queen ? 

2nd Lady, Not I, sir ; the old Saints send me lovers 
enough, and to spare — yourself for one. 

1st Lady. There is the giant-killer slain. But 
see — they have stopped : who is that raising the coffin 
lid ? 

2nd Lady. Her familiar spirit, .Conrad the heretic- 
catcher. 

Knight. I do defy him \ Thou art my only god- 
dess ; 
My saint, my idol, my — ahem ! 



scene iv.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 127 

1st Lady. That well's run dry. 

Look, how she trembles — Now she sinks, all shivering 
Upon the pavement — Why, you'll see nought there 
Flirting behind the pillar — Now she rises — 
And choking down that proud heart, turns to the 

altar — 
Her hand upon the coffin. 

Eliz. I thank thee, gracious Lord, who hast ful- 
filled 
Thine handmaid's mighty longings, with the sight 
Of my beloved's bones, and dost vouchsafe 
This consolation to the desolate. 
I grudge not, Lord, the victim which we gave Thee, 
Both he and I, of his most precious life, 
To aid Thine holy city : though Thou knowest 
His sweetest presence was to this world's joy 
As sunlight to the taper— Oh ! hadst Thou spared — 
Had Thy great mercy let us, hand in hand, 
Have toiled through houseless shame, on beggar's 

dole, 
I had been blest: Thou hast him, Lord, Thou hast 

him — 
Do with us what Thou wilt ! If at the price 
Of this one silly hair, in spite of Thee, 
I could reclothe these wan bones with his manhood, 
And clasp to my shrunk heart my hero's self — 
I would not give it ! 

I will weep no more — 
Lead on, most holy ; on the sepulchre 
Which stands beside the choir, lay down your 

burden. [To the People. 

Now, gentle hosts, within the close hard by, 
Will we our court, as queen of sorrows, hold — 
The green graves underneath us, and above 
The all-seeing vault, which is the eye of God, 
Judge of the widow and the fatherless. 
There will I plead my children's wrongs, and there, 
If as I think, there boil within your veins 
The deep sure currents of your race's manhood, 



128 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act hi. 

Ye'll nail the orphans' badge upon your shields, 
And own their cause for God's. We name our cham- 
pions — 
Rudolf, the Cupbearer, Leutolf of Erlstetten, 
Hartwig of Erba, and our loved Count Walter, 
Our knights and vassals, sojourners among you. 
Follow us. 

[Exit Elizabeth, &c; the crowd following. 



scene i.] THE SAINTS TRAGEDY. 120 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. 

Night. The Church of a Convent. Elizabeth, 
Conrad, Gerard, Monks, an Abbess, Nuns, &c., 
in the distance. 

Conrad. What's this new weakness ? At your own - 
request 

"We come to hear your self-imposed vows 

And now you shrink : where are the high-flown 

fancies 
Which but last week, beside your husband's bier, 
You vapoured forth ? Will you become a jest ? 
You might have counted this tower's cost, before 
You blazoned thus your plans abroad. 

Eliz. Oh, spare me ! 

Con. Spare ? Spare yourself; and spare big easy 
words, 
Which prove your knowledge greater than your 
grace. 
Eliz. Is there no middle path ? No way to keep 
My love for them, and God, at once unstained ? 

Con. If this were God's world, madam, and not the 
devil's, 
It might be done. 

Eliz. God's world, man ? Why, God made it — 
The faith asserts it God's. 

Con. Potentially — 

As every christened rogue's a child of God, 
Or those old hags, Christ's brides — Think of your 

horn-book — 
The world, the flesh, and the devil — a goodly leash ! 
And yet God made all three. I know the fiend, 
And you should know the world — be sure, be sure, 
f3 



130 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act iv. 

The flesh is not a stork among the cranes. 
Our nature, even in Eden gross and vile, 
And by miraculous grace alone upheld, 
Is now itself, and foul, and damned, must die 
Ere we can live ; let halting worldlings, madam, 
Maunder against earth's ties, yet clutch them still. 
Eliz. And yet God gave them to me — 
Con. In the world; 

Your babes are yours according to the flesh ; 
How can you hate the flesh, and love its fruit ! 

Eliz. The Scripture bids me love them. 
■ Con. Truly so, 

While you are forced to keep them ; when God's 

mercy 
Doth from the flesh and world deliverance offer, 
Letting you bestow them elsewhere, then your love 
May cease with its own usefulness, and the spirit 
Range in free battle lists ; I'll not waste reasons — 
We'll leave you, madam, to the Spirit's voice. 

[Conrad and Gerard withdraw. 
Eliz. [Alone.'] Give up his children ? Why, I'd not 

give up 
A lock of hair, a glove his hand had hallowed : 
And they are his gift ; his pledge ; his flesh and 

blood ; 
Tossed off for my ambition ! Ah ! my husband! 
His ghost's sad eyes upbraid me ! Spare me, spare 

me ! 
I'd love thee still, if I dared'; but I fear God. 
And shall I never more see loving eyes 
Look into mine, until my dying day ? 
That's this world's bondage : Christ would have me 

free, 
And 'twere a pious deed to cut myself 
The last, last strand, and fly : but whither ? whither ? 
What if I cast away the bird i' the hand 
And found none in the bush ? 'Jis possible — 
What right have I to arrogate Christ's bride-bed ? 
Crushed, widowed, sold to traitors ? I, o'er whom 



scene I.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 131 

His billows and His storms are sweeping ? God's not 

angry: 
No, not so much as we with buzzing fly ; 
Or in the moment of His wrath's awakening 
We should be — nothing. No — there's worse than 

that — 
What if He but sat still, and let me be ? 
And these deep sorrows, which my vain conceit 
Calls chastenings — meant for me — my ailments' cure — 
Were lessons for some angels far away, 
And I the corpus vile for the experiment ? 
The grinding of the sharp and pitiless wheels 
Of some high Providence, which had its mainspring 
Ages ago, and ages hence its end? 
That were too horrible ! — 
To have torn up all the roses from my garden, 
And planted thorns instead ; to have forged my griefs, 
And hugged the griefs I dared not forge ; made earth 
A hell, for hope of heaven ; and after all, 
These homeless moors of life toiled through, to wake, 
And find blank nothing ! Is that an gel- world 
A gaudy window, which we paint ourselves 
To hide the dead void night beyond ? The present ? 
Why here's the present — like this arched gloom, 
It hems our blind souls in, and roofs them over 
With adamantine vault, whose only voice 
Is our own wild prayers' echo : and our future ?— — 
It rambles out in endless aisles of mist, 
The further still the darker — Oh, my Saviour ! 
My God ! where art Thou ? That's but a tale about 

Thee, 
That crucifix above — it does but show Thee 
As Thou wast once, but not as Thou art now — 
Thy grief, but not Thy glory : where's that gone ? 
I see it not without me, and within me 
Hell reigns, not Tljou ! 

[Dashes herself down on the altar steps. 



132 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act iv. 

[Monks in the distance chanting.] 

1 Kings' daughters were among thine honourable 

women' — 

Eliz. Kings' daughters ! I am one ! 

* * * * * 

Monies. ' Hearken, oh daughter, and consider ; 
incline thine ear : 
• Forget also thine own people, and thy father's house, 
' So shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty : 
' For He is Thy Lord God, and worship thou Him.' 

Eliz. [Springing up.] I will forget them ' 
They stand between my soul and its allegiance. 
Thou art my God : what matter if Thou love me ? 
I am Thy bond-slave, purchased with Thy life-blood ■ 
I will remember nothing, save that debt. 
Do with me what thou wilt. Alas, my babies ! 
He loves them — they'll not need me. 

Conrad advancing. 

Con. How now, madam ? 

Have these your prayers unto a nobler will 
Won back that wandering heart ? 

Eliz. God's will is spoken : 

The flesh is weak ; the spirit's fixed, and dares, — 
Stay ! confess, sir, 

Did not yourself set on your brothers here 
To sing me to your purpose ? 

Con. - As I live 

I meant it not ; yet had I bribed them to it, 
Those words were no less" God's. 

Eliz. I know it, I know it ; 

And I'll obey them : come, the victim's ready. 
[Lays her hand on the altar. Gerard, Abbess, and 
Monks descend and advance.'] 
All worldly goods and wealth, which once I loved 
I now do count but dross : and my beloved, 
The children of my womb, I now regard 
A s if they were another's, God is witness. 
My pride is to despise myself; my joy 



scene i.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 133 

All insults, sneers, and slanders of mankind ; 
No creature now I love, but God alone. 
Oh to be clear, clear, clear, of all but Him ! 
Lo, here I strip me of all earthly helps — 

[Tearing off her clothes. 
Naked and barefoot through the world to follow 
My naked Lord — And for my filthy pelf — 
Con. Stop, madam — 
Eliz. Why so, sir ? 

Con. Upon thine oath ! 

Thy wealth is God's not thine — How darest renounce 
The trust He lays on thee ? I do command thee, 
Being, as Aaron, in God's stead, to keep it 
Inviolate, for the Church and thine own needs. 
Eliz. Be it so — I have no part nor lot in't — 
There — I have spoken. 

Abbess. Oh, noble soul ! which neither gold, nor 
love, 
Nor scorn can bend ! 

Gerard. And think what pure devotions, 

What holy prayers must they have been, whose 

guerdon 
Is such a flood of grace ! 

Nuns. What love again, 

What flame of charity, which thus prevails 
• In virtue's guest ! 

Eliz. Is self-contempt learnt thus ? 

I'll home. 

Abbess. And yet how blest, in these cool shades 
To rest with us, as in a land-locked pool, 
Touched last and lightest by the ruffling breeze. 

Eliz. No ! no ! no ! no ! I will not die in the dark : 
I'll breathe the free fresh air until the last, 
Were it but a month — I have such things to do — 
Great schemes — brave schemes — and such a little 

time ! 
Though now I am harnessed light as any foot-page. 
Come, come, my ladies. {Exeunt Elizabeth, <&c. 

Ger, Alas ! poor lady ! 



134 



THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 



[ACT IV. 



Con. Why alas, my son ! 

She longs to die a saint, and here's the way to it. 

Ger. Yet why so harsh ? why with remorseless knife 
Home to the stem prnne back each bough and bud ? 
I thought, the task of education was 
To strengthen, not to crush ; to train and feed 
Each subject toward fulfilment of its nature, 
According to the mind of God, revealed 
In laws, congenital with eyerj kind 
And character of man. 

Con. A heathen dream ! 

Young souls but see the gay and warm outside, 
And work but in the shallow upper soil. 
Mine deeper, and the sour and barren rock 
Will stop you soon enough. Who trains God's Saints, 
He must transform, not pet ■ — Nature's corrupt 

throughout — 
A gaudy snake, which must be crushed, not tamed, 
A cage of unclean birds, deceitful ever ; 
Born in the likeness of the fiend, which Adam 
Did at the Fall, the Scripture saith, put on. 
Canst thou draw our Leviathan with a hook, 
To make him sport for thy maidens ? Scripture saith 
Who is the prince of this world — so forget not. 

Ger. Forgive, if my more weak and carnal judgment 
Be startled by your doctrines, and doubt trembling 
The path whereon you force yourself and her. 

Con. Startled ? Belike — belike — let doctrines be ; 
Thou shalt be judged by thy works ; so see to them, 
And let divines split hairs ; dare all thou canst ; 
Be all thou darest ; — that will keep thy brains full. 
Have thy tools ready, God will find thee work — 
Then up, and play the man. Fix well thy purpose — 
Let one idea, like an orbed sun, 
Rise radiant in thine heaven ; and then round it 
All doctrines, forms, and disciplines will range 
As dim parhelia, or as needful clouds, 
Needful, but mist-begotten, to be dashed 
Aside, when fresh shall serve thy purpose better. 



scene II.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 135 

Ger. How ? dashed aside ? 

Con. Yea, dashed aside — why not ? 

The truths, my son, are safe in God's abysses — 
While we patch up the doctrines to look like them. 
The best are tarnished mirrors — clumsy bridges, 
Whereon, as on firm soil, the mob may walk 
Across the gulf of doubt, and know no danger. 
We, who see heaven, may see the hell which girds it. 
Blind trust for them. When I came here from Rome, 
Among the Alps, all through one frost-bound dawn, 
Waiting with sealed lips the noisy day, 
I walked upon a marble mead of snow — 
An angel's spotless plume, laid there for me : 
Then from the hill-side, in the melting noon, 
Looked down the gorge, and lo ! no bridge, no snow — 
But seas of writhing glacier, gashed and scored 
With splintered gulfs, and fathomless crevasses, 
Blue lips of hell, which sucked down roaring rivers 
The fiends who fled the sun. The path of Saints 
Is such ; so shall she look from heaven, and see 
The road which led her thither. Now we'll go, 
And find some lonely cottage for her lodging ; 
Her shelter now is but a crumbling ruin 
Roofed in with pine boughs — discipline more healthy 
For soul, than body : She's not ripe for death. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene II. 

Open space in a Suburb of Marpurg, near Elizabeth's 
Hut. Count Walter and Count Pama oe Hun- 
gary entering. 

C. Pama. I have prepared my nerves for a shock. 

C. Wal. You are wise, for the world's upside down 
here. The last gateway brought us out of Christendom 
into the new Jerusalem, the Fifth Monarchy, where 
the Saints possess the earth. Not a beggar here but 
has his pockets full of fair ladies' tokens : not a bare- 
footed friar but rules a princess. 



136 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act iv. 

C. Pama. Creeping, I opine, into widows' houses, 
and for a pretence making long prayers. 

C. Wal. Don't quote Scripture here, sir, especially 
in that gross literal way ! The new lights here have 
taught us that Scripture's saying one thing, is a certain 
proof that it means another. Except, by the bye, in 
one text. 

C. Pama. What's that ? 

C. Wal. " Ask, and it shall be given you." 

C. Pama. Ah ! So we are to take nothing literally, 
that they may take literally everything themselves ? 

C. Wal. Humph ! As for your text, see if they do 
not saddle it on us before the day is out, as glibly as 
ever you laid it on them. Here comes the lady's 
tyrant, of whom I told you. 

Coxead advances from the Hut. 

Con. And what may Count Walter's valour want 
here ? [Count Waltee turns his back. 

C. Pama. I come, sir priest, from Andreas, king- 
renowned 
Of Hungary, ambassador unworthy 
"Unto the Landgravine, his saintly daughter ; 
And fain would be directed to her presence. 

Con. That is as I shall choose. But I'll not stop 

I do not build with straw. I'll trust my pupils 

To wordlings' iionied tongues, who make long prayers, 

And enter widows' houses for pretence. 

There dwells the lady, who has chosen too long 

The better part, to have it taken from her. 

Besides that with strange dreams and revelations 

She has of late been edified. 

C. Wal. Bah ! but they will serve your turn — and 
hers. 

Con. What do you mean ? 

C. Wal. When you have cut her off from child and 
friend, and even Isentrudis and Guta, as I hear, are 
thrust out by you to starve, and she sits there, shut up 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 137 

like a bear in a hole, to feed on her own substance ; 
if she has not some of these visions to look at, how is 
she, or any other of your poor self-gorged prisoners, to 
help fancying herself the only creature on earth ? 

Con. How now ? "Who more than she, in faith and 
practice, a living member of the Communion of Saints ? 
Did she not lately publicly dispense in charity in a 
single day five hundred marks and more ? Is it not 
my continual labour to keep her from utter penury 
through her extravagance in almsgiving ? For whom 
does she take thought but for the poor, on whom, day 
and night, she spends her strength ? Does she not 
tend them from the cradle, nurse them, kiss their sores, 
feed them, bathe them, with her own hands, clothe 
them, living and dead, with garments, the produce of 
her own labour ? Did she not of late take into her own 
house a paralytic boy, whose loathsomeness had driven 
away every one else ? And now that we have removed 
that charge, has she not with her a leprous boy, to 
whose necessities she ministers hourly, by day and 
night ? What valley but blesses her for some school, 
some chapel, some convent, built by her munificence ? 
Are not the hospices, which she has founded in divers 
towns, the wonder of Germany? — wherein she daily 
feeds and houses a multitude of the infirm poor of 
Christ ? Is she not followed at every step by the bless- 
ings of the poor ? Are not her hourly intercessions for 
the souls and bodies of all around incessant, world- 
famous, mighty to save ? While she lives only for the 
Church of Christ, will you accuse her of selfish isola- 
tion ? 

C. Wal, I tell you, monk, if she were not healthier 
by God's making than ever she will be by yours, her 
charity would be by this time double-distilled selfish- 
ness ; the mouths she fed, cupboards to store good 
works in ; the backs she warmed, clothes'-horses to 
hang out her* wares before God ; her alms not given, 
but fairly paid, a halfpenny for every halfpenny-worth 
of eternal life ; earth her chess-board, and the men and 



138 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act iv. 

women on it, merely pawns for her to play a winning 
game — puppets and horn-books to teach her unit holi- 
ness — a private workshop in which to work out her 
own salvation. Out upon such charity ! 

Con. God hath appointed that our virtuous deeds 
Each merit their rewards. 

C. Wal. Go to — go to. I have watched you and 
your crew, how you preach up selfish ambition for 
divine charity, and call prurient longings celestial love, 
while you blaspheme that very marriage from whose 
mysteries you borrow all your cant. The day will 
come when every husband and father will hunt you 
down like vermin ; and may I live to see it. 

Coti. Out on thee, heretic ! 

C. Wal. (Drawing.) .Liar ! At last ? 

C. Pama. In God's name, sir, what if the Princess 
find us ? 

C. Wal. Ay — for her sake. But put that name on 

me again, as you do on every good Catholic who will 

not be your slave and puppet, and if thou goest home 

with ears and nose, there is no hot blood in Germany. 

[They move toward the Cottage. 

Con. [Alone.] Were I as once I was, I could 
revenge : 
But now all private grudges wane like mist 
In the keen sunlight of my full intent ; 
And this man- counts but for some sullen bull 
Who paws and mutters at unheeding pilgrims 
His empty wrath : yet let him bar my path, 
Or stay me but one hour in my life-purpose, 
And I will fell him as a savage beast, 
God's foe, not mine. Beware thyself, Sir Count ! 

[Exit. The Counts return from the Cottage. 

C. Pama. Shortly she will return ; here to expect 
her 
Is duty both, and honour. Pardon me — 
Here humours are well known here ? Passers by 
Will guess who 'tis we visit ? 

C. Wal. Very likely. 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 139 

C. Pama. Well, travellers see strange things — and 
do them too. 
Hem ! this turf-smoke affects my breath : we might 
Draw back a space. 

C. Wal. Certie, we were in luck, 

Or both our noses would have been snapped off 
By those two she-dragons ; how their sainthoods 

squealed 
To see a brace of beards peep in ! Poor child ! 
Two sweet companions for her loneliness ! 

C. Pama. But ah ! what lodging ! 'Tis at that my 
heart bleeds ! 
That hut, whose rough and smoke-embrowned spars 
Dip to the cold clay floor on either side ! 
Her seats bare deal ! — her only furniture 
Some earthen crock or two ! Why, sir, a dungeon 
Were scarce more frightful : such a choice must argue 
Aberrant senses, or degenerate blood ? 

C. Wal What? Were things foul? 

C. Pama. I marked not, sir. 

C. Wal. I did. 

You might have eat your dinner off the floor. 

G. Pama. Off any spot, sir, which a princess's foot 
Had hallowed by its touch. 

C. Wal. Most courtierly. 

Keep, keep, those sweet saws for the lady's self. 
[Aside.] Unless that shock of the nerves shall send 
them flying. 

C. Pama. Yet whence this depth of poverty ? I 
thought 
You and her champions had recovered for her 
Her lands and titles. 

C. Wal. Ay ; that coward Henry 

Gave them all back as lightly as he took them : 
Certie, we were four gentle applicants — 
And Rudolph told him some unwelcome truths — 
Would God that all of us might hear our sins, 
As Henry heard that day ! 

C. Pama. Then she refused them ? 



140 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act iv. 

C. Wal. ' It ill befits, ' quoth she, ' my royal blood, 
' To take extorted gifts ; 1 tender back 
' By you to him, for this his mortal life, 

• That which he thinks by treason cheaply bought ; 
' To which my son shall, in his father's right, 

' By God's good will, succeed. For that dread height 

• May Christ by many woes prepare his youth !' 

C. Pama. Humph ! 

C. Wal. Why here — no, 't cannot be — 

C. Pama. What hither comes 

Forth from the hospital, where, as they told us, 
The Princess labours in her holy duties ? 
A particoloured ghost that stalks for penance ? 
Ah ! a good head of hair, if she had kept it 
A thought less lank ; a handsome face too, trust me, 
But worn to fiddle-strings ; well, we'll be knightly — 

[As Elizabeth meets him.'] 
Stop, my fair queen of rags and patches, turn 
Those solemn eyes a moment from your distaff, 
And say, what tidings your magnificence 
Can bring us of the Princess 1 

Eliz. I am she. 

[Count Pama crosses himself and falls on his knees.] 

C. Pama. Oh blessed saints and martyrs ! Open, 
earth ! 
And hide my recreant knighthood in thy gulf ! 
Yet mercy, madam ! for till this strange day 
Who e'er saw spinning wool, like village-maid, - 
A royal scion ? 

C. Wal. [Kneeling.] My beloved mistress ! 

Eliz. Ah ! faithful friend ! Rise, gentles, rise, for 
shame ; 
Nay, blush not, gallant sir. You have seen, ere now, 
Kings' daughters do worse things than spinning wool, 
Yet never reddened. Speak your errand out. 

C. Pama. I from your father, jnadam — 

Eliz. Oh ! I divine ; 

And grieve that you so far have journeyed, sir, 
Upon a bootless quest. 



scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 141 

C. Pama. But hear me, madam — 

If you return with me (overwhelming honour ! 
For such mean body-guard too precious treasure) 
Your father offers to you half his wealth ; 
And countless hosts, whose swift and loyal blades 
From traitorous grasp shall vindicate your crown. 
Eliz. Wealth ? I have proved it, and have tossed it 
from me : 
I will not stoop again to load with clay. 
War ? I have proved that too : should I turn loose 
On these poor sheep the wolf whose fangs have gored 

me, 
God's bolt would smite me dead. 

C. Pama. Madam, by his gray hairs he doth entreat 

you. 
Eliz. Alas ! small comfort would they find in me ! 
I am a stricken and most luckless deer, 
Whose bleeding track but draws the hounds of wrath 
Where'er I pause a moment. He has children 
Bred at his side, to nurse him in his age — 
While I am but an alien and a changeling, 
Whom, ere my plastic sense could impress take 
Either of his feature or his voice, he lost. 

C. Pama. Is it so ? Then pardon, madam, but your 
father 
Must by a father's right command — 

Eliz. Command ! Ay, that's the phrase of the 
world : — well — tell him, 
But tell him gently too — that child and father 
Are names, whose earthly sense I have foresworn, 
And know no more : I have a heavenly spouse, 
Whose service doth all other claims annul. 

0. Wal. Ah lady, dearest lady, be but ruled ! 
Your Saviour will be there as near as here. 

Eliz. What? Thou too, friend? Dost thou not 
know me better? 
Wouldst have me leave undone what I begin ? 
[To Count Pama.] My father took the cross, sir : so 
did I: 






142 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act iv. 

As lie would die at his post, so will I die : 

He is a warrior : ask him, should I leave 

This my safe fort, and well-proved vantage-ground, 

To roam on this world's flat and fenceless steppes ? 

C. Pama. Pardon me, madam, if my grosser wit 
Fail to conceive your sense. 

Eliz. It is not needed. 

Be but the mouthpiece to my father, sir ; 
And tell him — for I would not anger him — 
Tell him, I am content — say, happy — tel] him 
I prove my kin by prayers for him, and masses 
For her who bore me. We shall meet on high. 
And say, his daughter is a mighty tree, 
From whose wide roots a thousand sapling suckers 
Drink half their life ; she dare not snap the threads, 
And let her offshoots wither. So farewell. 
"Within the convent there, as mine own guests, 
You shall be fitly lodged. Come here no more. 

C. Wal. C. Pama. Farewell, sweet saint ! [Exeunt. 

Eliz. May God go with you both. 

No ! I will win for him a nobler name, 
Than captive crescents, piles of turbaned heads, 
Or towns retaken from the Tartar, give. 
In me he shall be greatest ; my report 
Shall through the ages win the quires of heaven 
To love and honour him ; and hinds, who bless 
The poor man's patron saint, shall not forget 
How she was fathered with a worthy sire. [Exit. 

Scene III. 

Night. Interior of Elizabeth's Hut. A leprous Boy 
sleeping on a Mattress. Elizabeth icatching by 
him. 

Eliz. My shrunk limbs, stiff from many a blow, 
Are crazed with pain. 
A long dim formless fog-bank creeping low, 
Dulls all my brain. 



scene in.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 143 

I remember two young lovers, 

In a golden gleam. 
Across the brooding darkness shrieking hovers 

That fair, foul dream. 

My little children call to me, 

' Mother ! so soon forgot V 
From out dark nooks their yearning faces startle 
me, 

Go, babes ! I know you not ! 

Pray ! pray ! or thou'lt go mad. 

* #■ *• * * 

The past's our own : 
No fiend can take that from us ! Ah, poor boy ! 
Had I, like thee, been bred from my black birth -hour 
In filth and shame, counting the soulless months 
Only by some fresh ulcer ! I'll be patient — 
Here's something yet more wretched than myself. 
Sleep thou on still, poor charge— though I'll not 

grudge 
One moment of my sickening toil about thee, 
Best counsellor — dumb preacher, who dost warn me 
How much I have enjoyed, how much have left, 
Which thou hast never known. How am I wretched ? 
The happiness thou hast from me, is mine, 
And makes me happy. Ay, there lies the secret — 
Could we but crush that ever-craving lust 
For bliss, which kills all bliss, and lose our life, 
Our barren unit life, to find again 
A thousand lives in those for whom we die. 
So were we men and women, and should hold 
Our rightful rank in God's great universe, 
Wherein, in heaven and earth, by will or nature, 
Nought lives for self — All, all — from crown to foot- 
stool- — 
The Lamb, before the world's foundations slain — 
The angels, ministers to God's elect — 
The sun, who only shines to light a world — 
The clouds, whose glory is to die in showers — 



THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 



[ACT IV. 



The fleeting streams who in their ocean-graves 

Flee the decay of stagnant self-content — 

The oak, ennobled by the shipwright's axe— 

The soil, which yields its marrow to the flower — 

The flower, which feeds a thousand velvet worms, 

Born, only to be prey for every bird — 

All spend themselves for others : and shall man, 

Earth's rosy blossom — image of his G od— 

Whose twofold being is the mystic knot 

Which couples earth and heaven — doubly bound 

As being both worm and angel, to that service 

By which both worms and angels hold their life, 

Shall he, whose every breath is debt on debt, 

Refuse, without some hope of further wage 

Which he calls Heaven, to be what God has made him ? 

No ! let him show himself the creature's lord 

By freewill gift of that self-sacrifice 

Which they perforce by nature's law must suffer. 

This too I had to learn, (I thank thee, Lord !) 

To lie crushed down in darkness and the pit — 

To lose all heart and hope — and yet to work. 

What lesson could I draw from all my own woes — 

Ingratitude, oppression, widowhood — 

While I could hug myself in vain conceits 

Of self-contented sainthood — inward raptures — 

Celestial palms — and let ambition's gorge 

Taint heaven, as well as earth ? Is selfishness 

For time, a sin — spun out to eternity 

Celestial prudence ? Shame ! Oh, thrust me forth, 

Forth, Lord, from self," until I toil and die 

No more for Heaven and bliss, but duty, Lord, 

Duty to Thee, although my meed should be 

The hell which I deserve ! [Sleeps. 



Two Women enter. 

1st Woman. What ? snoring^still ? 
to wake her 
To do her penance. 



"Pis nearty time 



scene in.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. U~> 

2nd Woman. Wait awhile, for love : 

Indeed, I am almost ashamed to punish 
A bag of skin and bones. 

1st Woman. 'Tis for her good : 

She has had her share of pleasure in this life 
With her gay husband ; she must have her pain. 
We bear it as a thing of course ; we know 
What mortifications are, although I say it 
That should not. 

2nd Woman. Why, since my old tyrant died, 
Fasting I've sought the Lord, like any Anna, 
And never tasted fish, nor flesh, nor fowl, 
And little stronger than water. 

1st Woman. Plague on this watching ! 

What work, to make a saint of a fine lady ! 
See now, if she had been some labourer's daughter, 
She might have saved herself, for aught he cared ; 
But now — 

2nd Woman. Hush ! here the master comes : 
I hear him. — 

Conrad enters. 

Con. My peace, most holy, wise, and watchful 
wardens ! 
She sleeps ? Well, what complaints have you to bring 
Since last we met ? How ? blowing up the fire ? 
Cold is the true Saint's element — he thrives 
Like Alpine gentians, where the frost is keenest — 
For there Heaven's nearest — and the ether purest — 
[Aside.] And he most bitter. 

2nd Woman. Ah ! sweet master, 

We are not yet as perfect as yourself. 

Con. But how has she behaved ? 

1st Woman. Just like herself — 

Now ruffling up like any tourney queen ; 
Now weeping in dark corners ; then next minute 
Begging for penance on her knees. 

2nd Woman. One trick's cured ; 

That lust of giving ; Isentrude and Guta, 

G 



146 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act iv. 

The hussies, came here begging but yestreen, 
Vowed they were starving. 

Con. Did she give to them? 

2nd Woman. She told them that she dared not. 

Con. Good — for them, 

I will take measures that they shall not want; 
But see you tell her not : she must be perfect. 

1st Woman. Indeed, there's not much chance of 
that awhile. 
There's others, might be saints, if they were young, 
And handsome, and had titles to their names, 
If they were helped toward heaven, now — 

Con. Silence, horse-scull ! 

Thank God, that you are allowed to use a finger 
Towards building up His chosen tabernacle. 

2nd Woman. I consider that she blasphemes the 
means of grace. 

Con. Eh ? that's a point, indeed. 

2nd Woman. ^by, yesterday, 

Within the church, before a mighty crowd, 
She mocked at all the lovely images, 
And said, ' the money had been better spent 
c On food and clothes, instead of paint and gilding : 
' They were but pictures, whose reality 
( We 1 ought to bear within us.' 

Con. Awful doctrine ! 

1st Woman. Look at her carelessness, again — the 
distaff 
Or woolcomb in her hands, even on her bed. 
Then, when the work is done, she lets those nuns 
Cheat her of half the price. 

2nd Woman. The AJdenburgers. 

Con. Well, well, what more misdoings? 

[Aside.] Pah ! I am sick on't. 
[Aloud.] Go sit, and pray by her until she wakes. 

[TJie Women retire. Cokrad sits down by the fire.] 
I am dwindling to a peddling chamber-chaplain, 
Who hunts for crabs and ballads in maids' sleeves, 
I, who have shuffled kingdoms. Oh ! 'tis easy 






scene in.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 147 

To beget great deeds ; but in the rearing of them — 
The threading in cool blood each mean detail, 
And furzebrake of half-pertinent circumstance — 
There lies the self-denial. 

Women [In a low voice.] Master ! sir ! look here ! 

Eliz. [rising.] Have mercy, mercy, Lord ! 

Con. What is it, my daughter ? No — She answers 
not — 
Her eyeballs through their sealed lids are bursting, 
And yet she sleeps : her body does but mimic 
The absent soul's enfranchised wanderings 
In the spirit-world. 

Eliz. Oh ! She was but a worldling ! 

And think, good Lord, if that this world is hell, 
What wonder if poor souls whose lot is fixed here, 
Meshed down by custom, wealth, rank, pleasure, 

ignorance, 
Do hellish things in it ? Have mercy, Lord ; 
Even for my sake, and all my woes, have mercy ! 

Con. There ! she is laid again — Some bedlam dream. 
So — here I sit ; am I a guardian angel 
Watching by God's elect ? or nightly tiger, 
Who waits upon a dainty point of honour 
To clutch his prey, till it shall wake and move ? 
We'll waive that question : there's eternity 
To answer that in. 

How like a marble-carven nun she lies 
Who prays with folded palms upon her tomb, 
Until the resurrection ! Fair and holy ! 
Oh, happy Lewis ! had I been a knight — 
A man at all — What's this ? I must be brutal, 
Or I shall love her : and yet that's no safeguard ; 
I have marked it oft : ay — with that devilish triumph 
Which eyes its victim's wri things, still will mingle 
A sympathetic thrill of lust — say, pity. 

Eliz. [Awaking.] I am heard! She is saved! 
Where am I? What, have I overslept myself? 
Oh, do not beat me ! I will tell you all — 
I have had awful dreams of the other world. 
G2 



148 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act iv. 

1st Woman. Ay! ay! a fine excuse for lazy women, 
Who cry night-mare with lying on their backs. 

Eliz. I will be heard ! I am a prophetess ! 
God hears me. why not ye ? 

Con. Quench not the spirit : 

If He have spoken, daughter, we must listen. 

Eliz. Methought from out the red and heaving 
earth 
My mother rose, whose broad and queenly limbs 
A fiery arrow did impale, and round 
Pursuing tongues oozed up of nether fire, 
And fastened on her : like a winter-blast 
Among the steeples, then she shrieked aloud, 
' Pray for me, daughter, save me from this torment, 
For thou canst save !' And then she told a tale ; 
It was not true — my mother was not such — 
Oh God ! The pander to a brother's sin ! 

1st Woman. There now? The truth is out ! I told 
you, sister, 
About that mother — 

Con. Silence, hags! What then? 

Eliz. She stretched her arms, and sank. Was it a 
sin 
To love that sinful mother ? There I lay — 
And in the spirit far away I prayed ; 
What words I spoke, I know not, nor how long ; 
Until a still small voice sighed, ' Child, thou art 

heard i' 
Then on the pitchy dark a "small bright cloud . 
Shone out, and swelled, and neared, and grew to 

form, 
Till from it blazed my pardoned mother's face 
With nameless glory ! Nearer still she pressed, 
And bent her lips to mine — a mighty spasm 
Ran crackling through my limbs, and thousand bells 
Rang in my dizzy ears — And so I woke. 
Con. 'Twas but a dream. 

Eliz. 'Twas more ! 'twas more ! I've tests : 

From youth I have lived in two alternate worlds, 



scene in.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 149 

And night is live like day. This was no goblin ! 
'Twas a true vision, and my mother's soul 
Is freed by my poor prayers from penal fires, 
And waits for me in bliss. 

Con. Well — be it so then. 

Thou seest herein what prize obedience merits. 
Now to press forwards : I require your presence 
Within the square, at noon, to witness there 
The fiery doom — most just and righteous doom — 
Of two convicted and malignant heretics, 
Who at the stake shall expiate their crime, 
And pacify God's wrath against this land. 

Eliz. No ! no ! I will not go ! 

Con. What's here ? Thou wilt not ? 

I'll drive thee there with blows. 

Eliz. Then I will bear them, 

Even as I bore the last, with thankful thoughts 
Upon those stripes my Lord endured for me. 
Oh spare them, sir 1 poor blindfold sons of men ! 
No saint but daily errs, — and must they burn, 
Ah God ! for an opinion ? 

Con. Fool ! opinions ? 

Who cares for their opinions ? 'Tis rebellion 
Against the system which upholds the world 
For which they die : so, lest the infection spread, 
We must cut off the members, whose disease 
We'd pardon, could they keep it to themselves. 

[Elizabeth weeps. 
Well, I'll not urge it, — Thou hast other work — 
But for thy petulant words do thou this penance : 
I do forbid thee here, to give henceforth 
Food, coin, or clothes, to any living soul. 
Thy thriftless waste doth scandalize the elect, 
And maim thine usefulness : thou dost elude 
My wise restrictions still : 'Tis great, to live 
Poor, among riches ; when thy wealth is spent, 
Want is not merit, but necessity. 

Eliz. Oh, let me give ! 

That only pleasure have I left on earth ! 



tti li ii 1 1 rrmmn ■ 1 1 1 ini i n n iiiiiiiiiiii mil 1 1 1 1 ll I ll 



150 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act iv. 

Con. And for that very cause thou must forego it, 
And so be perfect : ( she who lives in pleasure 
Is dead, while yet she lives ;' grace brings no merit 
When 'tis the express of our own self-will. 
To shrink from what we practise ; do God's work 
In spite of loathings ; that's the path of saints. 
I have said. [Exit, with the Women . 

Eliz. Well! I am freezing fast — I have grown of 
late 
Too weak to nurse my sick ; and now this outlet, 
This one last thawing spring of fellow-feeling, 
Is choked with ice — Come, Lord, and set me free. 
Think me not hasty] measure not mine age, 
Oh Lord, by these my four-and-twenty winters. 
I have lived three lives — three lives. 
For fourteen years I was an idiot girl : 
Then I was born again ; and for five years, 
I lived ! I lived ! and then I died once more ; — 
One day when many knights came marching by, 
And stole away — we'll talk no more of that. 
And so these four years since, I have been dead, 
And all my life is hid with Christ in God. 
Nunc igitur dimittas, Domine, servam tuam. 

Scene IV. 

The Same. Elizabeth lying on Straw in a corner. 
A crowd of Women roundher. Conrad entering. 

Con. As I expected — 
A sermon-mongering herd about her death bed, 
Stifling her with fusty sighs, as flocks of rooks 
Despatch, with pious pecks, a wounded brother. 
Cant, howl, and whimper ! Not an old fool in the 

town 
Who thinks herself religious, but must see 
The last of the show, and mob the deer to death. 
[Advancing.'] Hail ! holy ones ! How fares your charge 

to-day ? 



scene iv.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 151 

Abbess. After the blessed sacrament received, 
As surfeited with those celestial viands, 
And with the blood of life intoxicate, 
She lay entranced ; and only stirred at times 
To eructate sweet edifying doctrine 
Culled from your darling sermons. 

Woman. Heavenly grace 

Imbues her so throughout, that even when pricked 
She feels no pain. 

Con. A miracle, no doubt. 

Heaven's work is ripe, and like some more I know, 
Having begun in the spirit, in the flesh 
She's now made perfect : she hath had warnings, too, 
Of her decease ; and prophesied to me, 
Three weeks ago, when I lay like to die, 
That I should see her in her coffin yet. 

Abbess. 'Tis said, she heard in dreams her Saviour 
call her 
To mansions built for her from everlasting. 

Con. Ay, so she said. 

Abbess. But tell me, in her confession 

Was there no holy shame — no self-abhorrence 
For the vile pleasures of her carnal wedlock? 

' Con. She said no word thereon : as for her shrift, 
No Chrisom child could show a chart of thoughts 
More spotless than were hers. 

Nun. Strange, she said nought ; 

I had hoped she had grown more pure. 

Con. When, next, I asked her, 

How she would be interred ; ' In the vilest weeds, ' 
Quoth she, ' my poor hut holds ; I will not pamper 
When dead, that flesh, which living I despised. 
And for my wealth, see it to the last doit 
Bestowed upon the poor of Christ.' 

2nd Woman. Oh grace ! 

3rd Woman. Oh soul to this world poor, but rich 
toward God ! 

Eliz. [Awaking.] Hark ! how they cry for bread ! 
Poor souls ! be patient ! 



I TTTT1T1 ITTTTTTTl 1 rrTTTTTTTrrrriTTTTTTTT 



152 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act iv, 

I have spent all — 

I'll sell myself for a slave — feed them with the price. 

Come, Guta ! Nurse ! We must be up and doing ! 

Alas ! they are gone, and begging ! 

Go ! go ! They'll beat me, if I give you aught : 

I'll pray for you, and so youll go to Heaven. 

I am a saint— God grants me all I ask. 

•~§ut I must love no creature. Why, Christ loved — 

Mary he loved, and Martha, and their brother — 

Three friends ! and I have none ! 

When Lazarus lay dead, He groaned in spirit, 

And wept — like any widow — Jesus wept ! 

I'll weep, weep, weep ! pray for that ' gift of tears.' 

They took my friends away, but not my eyes. 

Oh, husband, babes, friends, nurse ! To die alone ! 

Crack, frozen brain ! .Melt, icicle within ! 

Women. Alas ! Sweet saint ! By bitter pangs she 
wins 
Her crown of endless glory ! 

Con. But she wins it ! 

Stop that vile sobbing : she's unmanned enough 
Without your maudlin sympathy. 

Eliz. What ? weeping ? 

Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me — 
Weep for yourselves. 

Women. We do, alas ! we do ! 

What are we without you ? [A pause. 

Woman. - Oh listen, listen ! 

What sweet sounds from her fast-closed lips are 

welling, 
As from the caverned shaft, deep miners' songs ? 
Eliz. [in a low voice ] Through the stifling room 
Floats strange perfume ; 
Through the crumbling thatch 
The angels watch, 
Over the rotting roof tree. 
They warble, and flutter, and l;over and glide, 
Wafting old sounds to my dreary bedside, 
Snatches of songs which I used to know 



scene iv.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 153 

When I slept by my nurse, and the swallows 
Called me at day- dawn from under the eaves. 
Hark to them ! Hark to them now — 
Fluting like woodlarks, tender and low — 
Cool rustling leaves — tinkling waters — 
Sheepbells over the lea — 
In their silver plumes Eden-gales whisper — 
In their hands Eden -lilies — not for me — not for me — 
No crown for the poor fond bride ! 
The song told me so, 
Long, long ago, 
How the maid chose the white lily ; 
But the bride she chose 
The red red rose, 
And by its thorn died she. 
Well — in my Father's house are many mansions — 

I have trodden the waste howling ocean -foam, 

Till I stand upon Canaan's shore, 
Where Crusaders from Zion's towers call me home, 

To the saints who are gone before. 

Con. Still on Crusaders ? [Aside. 

A bbess. What was that sweet song, which just now, 
my Princess, 
You murmured to yourself ? 

Eliz. Did you not hear 

A little bird between me and the wall, 
That sang and sang ? 

Abbess. We heard him not, fair saint. 

Eliz. I heard him, and his merry carol revelled 
Through all my brain, and woke my parched throat 
To join his song : then angel melodies 
Burst through the dull dark, and the mad air quivered 
Unutterable music. Nay, you heard him. 

Abbess. Nought save yourself. 

Eliz. Slow hours ! Was that the cock-crow ? 

Woman. St. Peter's bird did call. 

Eliz. Then I must up — ■ 

To matins, and to work — No, my work's over. 
G3 



154 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act iv. 

And what is it, what ? 

One drop of oil on the salt seething ocean ! 

Thank God, that one was born at this same hour 

Who did our work for us : we'll talk of Him : 

We shall go mad with thinking of ourselves — 

We'll talk of Him, and of that new-made star, 

Which, as He stooped into the Virgin's side, 

From off His finger, like a signet-gem, 

He dropped in the empyrean for a sign. 

But the first tear He shed at this His birth-hour, 

When He crept weeping forth to see our woe, 

Fled up to Heaven in mist, aud hid for ever 

Our sins, our works, and that same new-made star. 

Woman. Poor soul ! she wanders ! 

Con. Wanders, fool ? her madness 

Is worth a million of your paters, mumbled 
At every station between — 

Eliz. Oh! thank God 

Our eyes are dim ! What should we do, if he, 
The sneering fiend, who laughs at all our toil, 
Should meet us face to face ? 

Con. We'd call him fool. 

Eliz. There ! There ! Fly, Satan, fly ! 'Tis gone ! 

Con. The victory's gained at last ! 
The fiend is baffled, and her saintship sure ! 
Oh people blest of heaven ! 

Eliz. Oh master, master ! 

You will not let the mob, when I lie dead 
Make me a show — paw over all my limbs — 
Pull out my hair — pluck off my finger-nails — 
Wear scraps of me for charms and amulets, 
As if I were a mummy, or a drug ? 
As they have done to others — I have seen it — 
Nor set me up in ugly naked pictures 
In every church, that cold world-hardened wits 
May gossip o'er my secret tortures j Promise — 
Swear to me ! I demand it ! 

Con. No man lights 

A candle, to be hid beneath a bushel : 



scene iv.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 155 

Thy virtues are the Church's dower : endure 
All which the edification of the faithful 
Makes needful to be published. 

Eliz. Oh my God! 

I had stripped myself of all, but modesty ! 
Dost thou claim yet that victim ? Be it so. 
Now take me home ! I have no more to give thee ! 
So weak — arid yet no pain — why, now nought ails me !" 
How dim the lights burn ! Here — 
Where are you, children ? 
Alas ! I had forgotten. 

Now I must sleep — for ere the sun shall rise, 
I must begone upon a long, long journey 
To him T love. 

Con. She means her heavenly bridegroom — 

The spouse of souls. 

Eliz. I said, to him I love. 

Let me sleep, sleep. 
You will not need to wake me — so — good night. 

[Folds herself into an attitude of repose. The scene 
».] 



THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act v. 



ACT V. 

Scene I. a.d. 1235. 

A Convent at Marpurg. Cloisters of the Infirmary. 
Two aged Monks sitting. 

1st Monk. So they will publish to-day the Land- 
gravine's canonization, and translate her to the new 
church prepared for her. Alack, now, that all the 
world should be out sight-seeing and saint-making, and 
we laid up here, like two lame jackdaws in a belfry! 

2nd Monk. Let be, man — let be. We have seen 
sights and saints in ' our time. And, truly, this 
insolatio suits my old bones better than processioning. 

1st Monk. 'Tis pleasant enough in the sun, were it 
not for the flies. Look — there's a lizard. Come you 
here, little run-about ; here's game for you. 

2nd Monk. A tame fool, and a gay one — Munditise 
mundanis. 

1st Monk. Catch him a flat fly — my hand shaketh. 

2nd Monk. If one of your new-lights were here, 
now, he'd pluck him for a fiend, as Dominic did the 
live sparrow in chapel. 

1st Monk. m There will be precious offerings made 
to-day, of which our house will get its share; 

2nd Monk. Not we; she always favoured the 
Franciscans most. 

1st Monk. 'Twas but fair — they were her kith and 
kin. She lately put on the habit of their third minors. 

2nd Monk. So have half the fine gentlemen and 
ladies in Europe. There's one of your new inventions, 
now, for letting grand folk serve God and mammon at 
once, and emptying honest monasteries, where men 
give up all for the Gospel's sake. And now these 
Pharisees of Franciscans will go off with full pockets — 

Is* Monk. While we poor publicans — 



scene I.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 157 

2nd Monk. Shall not come home all of us justified, 
I think. 

1st Monk. How? Is there scandal among U3? 

2nd Monk. Ask not — ask not. Even a fool, when 
he holds his peace, is counted wise. Of all sins, avoid 
that same gossiping. 

1st Monk. Nay, tell me now. Are we not like 
David and Jonathan ? Have we not worked together, 
prayed together, journeyed together, and been soundly 
flogged together, more by token, any time this forty 
years ? And now is news so plenty, that thou darest 
to defraud me of a morsel ? 

2nd Monk. I'll tell thee — but be secret. I knew a 
man hard by the convent (names are dangerous, and 
a bird of the air shall carry the matter,) one that hath 
a mighty eye for a heretic, if thou knowest him. 

1st Monk. Who carries his poll screwed on over- 
tight, and sits with his eyes shut in chapel ? 

2nd Monk. The same. Such a one to be in evil 
savour — to have the splendour of the pontifical 
countenance turned from him, as though he had taken 
Christians for Amalekites, and slain the people of the 
Lord. 

1st Monk. How now? 

2nd Monk. I only speak as I hear : for my sister's 
son is chaplain, for the time being, to a certain 
Archisacerdos, a foreigner, now lodging where thou 
knowest. The young man being hid, after some 
knavery, behind the arras, in come our quidam and 
that prelate. The quidam, surly and Saxon — the 
guest, smooth and Italian; his words softer than 
butter, yet very swords: that this quidam had 'ex- 
ceeded the bounds of his commission — launched out 
into wanton and lawless cruelty — burnt noble ladies 
unheard, of whose innocence the Holy See had proof — 
defiled the Catholic faith in the eyes of the weaker sort 
— and alienated the minds of many nobles and gentle- 
men' — and finally, that he who thinketh he standeth, 
were wise to take heed lest he fall. 



158 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY] [act y. 

1st Monk. And what said Conrad? 

2nd Monk. Out upon a man that cannot keep his 
lips ! Who spake of Conrad ? That quidam, however, 
answered nought, but — how, 'to his own master he 
stood or fell' — how ' he laboured not for the Pope but 
for the Papacy ;' and so forth. 

1st Monk. Here is awful doctrine ! Behold the fruit 
of your reformers ! This comes of their realized ideas, 
and centralizations, and organizations, till a monk 
cannot wink in chapel without being blinded with the 
lantern, or fall sick on Fridays, for fear of the rod. 
Have I not testified? Have I not foretold? 

2nd Monk. Thou hast indeed. Thou knowest that 
the old paths are best, and livest in most pious 
abhorrence of all amendment. 

1** Monk. Do you hear that shout? There is the 
procession returning from the tomb. 

2nd Monk. Hark to the tramp of the horse-hoofs ! 
A gallant show, I'll warrant ! 

1st Monk. Time was, now, when we were young 
bloods together in the world, such a roll as that would 
have set our hearts beating against their cages ! 

2nd Monk. Ay, ay. We have seen sport in our 
day ; we have paraded and curvetted, eh ? and heard 
scabbards jingle ? We know the sly touch of the heel, 
that set him on his hind legs before the right window ? 
Vanitas vanitatum — omnia vanitas! Here comes 
Gerard, Conrad's chaplain, with our dinner. . 

[Gerard enters across the Court. ~\ 

1st Monk. A kindly youth and a godly, but — 
reformation-bitten, like the rest. 

2nd Monk. Never care. Boys must take the 
reigning madness in religion, as they do the measles — 
once for all. 

1st Monk. Once too often for him. His face is too, 
too like Abel's in the chap el- window. Ut sis vitalis 
metuo, puer! 



scene i.J THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 159 

Ger. Hail, fathers. I have asked permission of the 
prior to minister your refection, and bring you thereby 
the first news of the pageant. 

1st Monk. Blessings on thee for a good boy. Give 
us the trenchers, and open thy mouth while we open 
ours. 

2nd Monk. Most splendid all, no doubt '] 

Ger. A garden, sir, 

Wherein all rainbowed flowers were heaped together ; 
A sea of silk and gold, of blazoned banners, 
And chargers housed; such glorious press, be sure, 
Thuringen-land ne'er saw. 

2nd Monk. Just hear the boy ! 

Who rode beside the bier? 

Ger. Frederic the Kaiser, 

Henry the Landgrave, brother of her husband ; 
The Princesses, too, Agnes, and her mother ; 
And every noble name, sir, at whose war-cry 
The Saxon heart leaps up ; with them the prelates 
Of Treves, of Coin, and Maintz — why name them all ? 
When all were there, whom this our father-land 
Counts worthy of its love. 

1st Monk. 'Twas but her right. 

Who spoke the oration ? 

Ger. Who but Conrad? 

2nd Monk, Well— 

That's honour to our house. 

1st Monk. Come, tell us all. 

2nd Monk. In order, boy : thou hast a ready tongue. 

Ger. He raised from off her face the pall, and ' Lo V 
He cried, ' That saintly flesh which ye of late 
With sacrilegious hands, ere yet entombed, 
Had in your superstitious selfishness 
Almost torn piecemeal. Fools ! Gross-hearted fools ! 
These limbs are God's, not yours : in life for you 
They spent themselves ; now till the judgment-day 
By virtue of the Spirit embalmed they lie — 
Touch them who dare. No ! Would you find your 
saint, 



lITT II 1 1 II 1 1 in I M I LI Tl M 1 1 1 1 nrni iniTrrrmri iiiiiini iiTTTnTiTnirrTTF 



160 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act v. 

Look up, not down, where even now she prays 

Beyond that blazing orb for you and me. 

Why hither bring her corpse ? Why hide her clay 

In jewelled ark beneath God's mercy-seat — 

A speck of dust among these boundless aisles, 

Uprushing pillars, star-bespangled roofs, 

Whose colours mimic Heaven's unmeasured blue, 

Save to remind you, how she is not here, 

But risen with Him that rose, and by his blaze 

Absorbed, lives in the God for whom she died ? 

Know her no more according to the flesh ; 

Or only so, to brand upon your thoughts 

How she was once a woman — flesh and blood, 

Like you — yet how unlike ! Hark while I tell ye.' 

2nd Monk. How liked the mob all this ? They hate 
him sore. 

Ger. Half awed, half sullen, till his golden lips 
Entranced all ears with tales so sad and strange, 
They seemed one life-long miracle : bliss and woe, 
Honour and shame — her daring — Heaven's stern guid- 
ance, 
Did each the other so outblaze. 

1st Monk. Great signs 

Did wait on her from youth. 

2nd Monk. There went a tale 

Of one, a Zingar wizard, who, on her birthnight, 
He here in Eisenach, she in Presburg lying, 
Declared her natal moment, and the glory v 
Which should befal her by the grace of God. 

Ger. He spoke of that, and many a wonder more, 
Melting all hearts to worship — how a robe 
Which from her shoulders, at a royal feast, 
To some importunate as alms she sent, 
By miracle within her bower was hung again : 
And how on her own couch the Incarnate Son 
In likeness of a leprous serf, she laid : 
And many a wondrous tale, till now unheard ; 
Which, from her handmaid's oath and attestation, 
Siegfried of Maintz to far Perugia sent, 



scene I.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 161 

And sainted Umbria's labyrinthine hills, 
Even to the holy Council, where the Patriarchs 
Of Antioch and Jerusalem, and with them 
A host of prelates, magnates, knights and nobles, 
Decreed and canonized her sainthood's palm. 
1st Monk. Mass, they could do no less. 

Ger. So thought my master 

For, ' Thus,' quoth he, ' the primates of the Faith 

Have, in the bull which late was read to you, 

Most wisely ratified the will of God 

Revealed in her life's splendour: for the next count — ■ 

These miracles wherewith since death she shines — 

Since ye must have your signs, ere ye believe, 

And since without such tests the Roman Father 

Allows no saints to take their seats in heaven, 

Why, there ye have them ; not a friar, I find, 

Or old wife in the streets, but counts some dozens 

Of blind, deaf, halt, dumb, palsied, and hysterical, 

Made whole at this her tomb — A corpse or two 

Was raised, they say, last week: Will that content 

you? 
Will that content her ? Earthworms ! Would ye please 

the dead, 
Bring sinful souls, not limping carcases 
To test her power on ; which of you hath done that ? 
Has any glutton learnt from her to fast ? 
Or oily burgher dealt away his pelf? 
Has any painted Jezebel in sackcloth 
Repented of her vanities ? Your patron ? 
Think ye, that spell and flame of intercession, 
Melting God's iron will, which for your sakes 
She purchased by long agonies, was but meant 
To save your doctors' bills ? If any soul 
Hath been by her made holier, let it speak !' 

2nd Monk. Well spoken, Legate ! Easier asked than 

answered. 
Ger. Not so, for on the moment, from the crowd 
Sprang out a gay and gallant gentleman 
Well known in fight and tourney, and aloud 



162 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act v. 

With sobs and blushes told, how he long time 
Had wallowed deep in mire of fleshly sin, 
And loathed, and fell again, and loathed in vain ; 
Until the story of her saintly grace 
Drew him unto her tomb ; there long prostrate 
"With bitter cries he sought her, till at length 
The image of her perfect loveliness 
Transfigured all his soul, and from his knees 
He rose new-born, and, since that blessed day, 
In chastest chivalry, a spotless knight, 
Maintains the widow's and the orphan's cause. 

1st Monk. Well done ! and what said Conrad ? 

Ger. Oh, he smiled, 

As who should say, ' 'Twas but the news I looked 

for,' 
Then, pointing to the banners borne on high, 
Where the sad story of her nightly penance 
Was all too truly painted — ' Look !' he cried, 
1 'Twas thus she schooled her soft and shuddering flesh 
To dare and suffer for you ! — Thus she won 
The ear of God for you !' Gay ladies sighed, 
And stern knights wept, and growled, and wept again. 
And then he told her alms, her mighty labours, 
Among God's poor, the schools wherein she taught ; 
The babes she brought to the font, the hospitals 
Founded from her own penury, where she tended 
The leper and the fever-stricken serf 
With meanest office ; how a dying slave 
Who craved in vain for milk she stooped to feed- 

From her own bosom— At that crowning tale 

Of utter love, the dullest hearts caught fire 
Contagious from his lips — the Spirit's breath 
Low to the earth, like dewy-laden corn, 
Bowed the ripe harvest of that mighty host ; 
Knees bent, all heads were bare ; rich dames aloud 
Bewailed their cushioned sloth ; old foes held out 
Long parted hands ; low-murmured vows and prayers 
Gained courage, till a shout proclaimed her saint, 
And jubilant thunders shook the ringing air, 






scene ii.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 163 

Till birds dropped stunned, and passing clouds bewept 

With crystal drops, like sympathizing angels, 

Those wasted limbs, whose sainted ivory round 

Shed Eden-odours : from his royal head 

The Kaiser took his crown, and on the bier 

Laid the rich offering; dames tore off their jewels — 

Proud nobles heaped with gold and gems her corse 

Whom living they despised : I saw no more 

Mine eyes were blinded with a radiant mist — 
And I ran here to tell you. 

1st Monk. Oh, fair olive, 

Rich with the Spirit's unction, how thy boughs 
Rain balsams on us ! 

2nd Monk. Thou didst sell thine all — 
And bought'st the priceless pearl ! 

1st Monk. Thou holocaust of Abel 

By Cain in vain despised ! 

2nd Monk. Thou angels' playmate 
Of yore, but now their judge ! 

Oer. Thou alabaster, 

Broken at last, to fill the house of God 
With rich celestial fragrance ! 

[<&c, <&c, ad libitum. 

Scene II. 

A Room in a Convent at Mayence. Conrad alone. 

Con. The work is done ! Diva Elizabeth ! 
And I have trained one saint before I die ! 
Yet now 'tis done, is't well done ? On my lips 
Is triumph : but what echo in my heart. ? 
Alas ! the inner voice is sad and dull, 
Even at the crown and shout of victory. 
Oh ! I had hugged this purpose to my heart, 
Cast by for it all ruth, all pride, all scruples ; 
Yet now its face, that seemed as pure as crystal, 
Shows fleshly, foul, and stained with tears and gore ! 
We make, and moil, like children in their gardens, 



iwwn 1 1 1 1 i i i 



164 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act v. 

And spoil with dabbled hands, our flowers i' the plant- 
ing. 
And yet a saint is made ! Alas, those children ! 
Was there no gentler way ? I know not any : 
I plucked the gay moth from the spider's web ; 
What if my hasty hand have smirched its feathers ? 
Sure, if the whole be good, each several part 
May for its private blots forgiveness gain, 
As in man's tabernacle, vile elements 
Unite to one fair stature. Who'll gainsay it ? 
The whole is good ; another saint in heaven ; 
Another bride within the Bridegroom's arms ; 
And she will pray for me ! — And yet what matter ? 
Better that I, this paltry sinful unit, 
Fall fighting, crushed into the nether pit, 
If my dead corpse may bridge the path to Heaven, i 
And damn itself, to save the souls of others. 
A noble ruin : yet small comfort in it ; 

In it, or in aught else 

A blank dim cloud before mine inward sense 

Dulls all the past : she spoke of such a cloud 

I struck her for't, and said it was a fiend 

She's happy now, before the throne of God 

I should be merry ; yet my heart's floor sinks 

As on a fast day ; sure some evil bodes. 

Would it were here, that I might see its eyes ! 

The future only is unbearable ; 

We quail before the rising thunderstorm 

Which thrills and whispers in the stifled air, 

Yet blench not, when it falls. Would it were here ! 

[Pause.] 
I fain would sleep, yet dare not : all the air 
Throngs thick upon me with the pregnant terror 
Of life unseen, yet near. I dare not meet them, 

As if I sleep I shall do 1 again ? 

What matter what I feel, or like, -or fear ? 
Come what God sends. Within there — Brother 
Gerard ! 



scene ii.j THE SAINT'S TRAGEDT. KJ5 

[Gerard enters.] 

Watch here an hour, and pray. — The fiends are busy. 

So — hold my hand. [Crosses himself. 

Come on — I fear you not. \ [Sleeps. 

[Gerard sings.] 

Qui fugiens mundi gravia, 
Contempsit carnis bravia, 
Cupidinisque somnia, 
Lucratur, perdens, omnia. 

Hunc gestant ulnis angeli, 
Ne lapis omciat pedi; 
Ne luce timor occupet, 
Aut nocte pestis incubet. 

Huic cceli lilia germinant ; 
Arrisus sponsi permanent ; 
Ac nomen in fidelibus 
Quam filiorum melius. [Sleeps.] 

***** 

[Conrad awaking.] Stay ! Spirits, stay ! Art thou 
a hell-born phantasm, 
Or word too true, sent by the mother of God? 
Oh tell me, queen of Heaven ! 
Oh God ! if she, the city of the Lord, 
Who is the heart, the brain, the ruling soul 
Of half the earth; wherein all kingdoms, laws, 
Authority, and faith do culminate, 
And draw from her their sanction and their use ; 
The lighthouse founded on the rock of ages, 
Whereto the Gentiles look, and still are healed ; 
The tree whose rootlets drink of every river, 
Whose boughs drop Eden fruits on seaward isles ; 
Christ's seamless coat, rainbowed with gems and hues 
Of all degrees and uses, rend, and tarnish, 
And crumble into dust ! 
Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas ! 
Oh ! to have prayed, and toiled and lied — for this ! 



I PI I M 1 1 1 vn 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 



166 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act v. 

For this to have crushed out the heart of youth, 
And sat by cairn, while living bodies burned ! 
How ? Gerard ; sleeping 1 
Couldst thou not watch with me one hour, my son ? 

Ger. [awaking.] How ! have I slept ? Shame on 
my vaporous brain ! 
And yet there crept along my hand from thine 
A leaden languor, and the drowsy air 
Teemed thick with humming wings — I slept perforce. 
Forgive me (while for breach of holy rule 
Due penance shall seem honour) my neglect. 

Con. I should have beat thee for't, an hour agone — 
Now I judge no man ; What are rules and methods? 
I have seen things which make my brain -sphere reel : 
My magic teraph-bust, full packed, and labelled, 
With saws, ideas, dogmas, ends, and theories, 
Lies shivered into dust : Pah ! we do squint 
Each through his loop-hole, and then dream, broad 

heaven 
Is but the patch we see. But let none know ; 
Be silent, Gerard, wary. 

Ger. Nay — I know naught 

Of that which moves thee : though I fain would ask — 

Con. I saw our mighty Mother, Holy Church, 
Sit like a painted harlot ; round her limbs 
An oily snake had coiled, who smiled, and smiled, 
And lisped the name of Jesus — I'll not tell thee : 
I have seen more than man can see, and live : 
God, when He grants the tree of knowledge, bans 
The luckless seer from x>fF the tree of life, 
Lest he become as gods, and burst with pride ; 
Or sick at sight of his own nothingness, 
Lie down, and be a fiend : my time is near. 
Well- — I have neither child, nor kin, nor friend, 
Save thee, my son • I shall go lightly forth. 
Thou knowest, we start for Marpurg on the morrow ? 
Thou wilt go with me ? 

Ger. Ay, to death, my master ; 

Yet boorish heretics, with grounded throats, 



scene in.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 167 

Mutter like sullen bulls ; the Count of Sayni, 
And many gentlemen, they say, have sworn 
A fearful oath : there's danger in the wind. 

Con. They have their quarrel; I was keen and 
hasty : 
Grladio qui utitur, peribit gladio. 

When Heaven is strong, then Hell is strong : Thou 
fear'st not ? 
Ger. No ! though their name were legion ! 'Tis for 
thee 
Alone I quake, lest by some pious boldness 
Thou quench the light of Israel. 

Con. Light? my son ! 

There shall no light be quenched, when I lie dark. 
Our path trends outward : we will forth to-morrow : 
Now let's to chapel ; matin bells are ringing. 

[Exeunt.] 

Scene III. 

A road between Eisenach and Marpurg. Peasants 
waiting by the road-side. Walter of Varila, the 
Count of Saym, and other Gentlemen, entering on 
horseback. 

Gent. Talk not of honour — -Hell's a-flame within 

me: 
Foul water quenches fire as well as fair ; 
If I do meet him, he shall die the death, 
Come fair, come foul : I tell you, there are wrongs 
The fumbling piecemeal law can never touch, 
Which bring of themselves to the injured, right divine, 
Straight from the fount of right, above all parchments, 
To be their own avengers : dainty lawyers, 
If one shall slay the adulterer in the act, 
Dare not condemn him : girls have stabbed their 

tyrants, 
And common sense has crowned them saints ; yet 

what — 
What were their wrongs to mine ? All gone ! All gone ! 



■ j 

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I I 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 T l 1 1 1 1 M TT 1 1 1 1 1 1 m I I I 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 n 1 1 1 1 1 rmrrm-nm 1 1 rrrlf 



168 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act v. 

My noble boys, whom I had trained, poor fools, 

To win their spurs, and ride afield with me ! 

I could have spared them — but my wife ! my lady ! 

Those dainty limbs, which knew no eyes but mine — 

Before that ruffian mob — Too much for man ! 

Too much, stern Heaven ! — Those eyes, those hands, 

Those tender feet, where I have lain and worshipped — - 

Food for fierce flames ! And on the self-same day— 

The day that they were seized — unheard — unargued — 

No witness, but one vile convicted thief — 

The dog is dead and buried : Well done, henchmen ! 

They are not buried ! Pah ! their ashes flit 

About the common air ; we pass them — breathe 

them ! 
The self- same day ! If I had had one look ! 
One word — one single tiny spark of word, 
Such as two swallows change upon the wing ! 
She was no heretic : she knelt for ever 
Before the blessed rood, and prayed for me. 
Ar't sure he comes this road ? 

C. Saym. My messenger 

Saw him start forth, and watched him past the cross- 
ways : 
An hour will bring him here. 

C. Wal. How? ambuscading? 

I'll not sit by, while helpless priests are butchered ; 
Shame, gentles! 

C. Saym. - On my word, I knew not on't 
Until this hour : my quarrel's not so sharp, 
But I may let him pass", my name is righted 
Before the Emperor, from all his slanders ; 
And what's revenge to me ? 

Gent. Ay, ay — forgive and forget — 
The vermin's trapped — and we'll be gentle -handed, 
And lift him out, and bid his master speed him, 
Him and his firebrands. He shall never pass me. 

C. Wal. I will not see it \ r I'm old, and sick of 
blood. 
She loved him, while she lived ; and charged me once, 



e 



scene ill.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 169 

As her sworn liegeman, not to harm the knave. 

I'll home ; yet, knights, if aught untoward happen, 

And you should need a shelter, come to me : 

My walls are strong. Home, knaves ! we'll seek our 

wives, 
And beat our swords to ploughshares — when folks 

let us. [Exeunt Count Walter and Suite.] 

C. Saym. He's gone, brave heart! But — sir, you 

will not dare? 
The Pope'&own legate — think — there's danger in't. 

Gent. Look, how athwart yon sullen sleeping flats 
That frowning thunder-cloud sails pregnant hither ; — 
And black against its sheeted gray, one bird 
Flags fearful onward — Tis his cursed soul ! 
Now thou shalt quake, raven ! — The self-same day ! — 
He cannot 'scape ! The storm is close upon him ? 
There ! There ! the wreathing spouts have swallowed 

him! 
He's gone ! and see, the keen blue spark leaps out 
From crag to crag, and every vaporous pillar 
Shouts forth his death-doom ! 'Tis a sign, a sign ! 

[A heretic preacher mounts a stone. — Peasants gather 
round him.] 

These are the starved unlettered hinds, forsooth, 

He hunted down like vermin — for a doctrine. 

They have their rights, their wrongs; their lawless 

laws, 
Their witless arguings, which unconscious reason 
Informs to just conclusions. We will hear them. 

Preacher. My brethren, I have a message to you : 
therefore hearken with all your ears — for now is the 
day of salvation. It is written, that the children of 
this world are in their generation wiser than the 
children of light — and truly : for the children of this 
world, when they are troubled with vermin, catch 
them — and hear no more of them. But you, the 
children of light, the elect saints, the poor of this world 
rich in faith, let the vermin eat your lives out, and 
H 



1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 II I I I Ml I IT 1 II i I iTTTTT 



170 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act v. 

then fall down and worship them afterwards. You 
are all besotted — hag-ridden — drunkards sitting in the 
stocks, and bowing down to the said stocks, and 
making a god thereof. Of part, saith the prophet, ye 
make a god, and part serveth to roast — to roast the 
flesh of your sons and of your daughters ; and then ye 
cry, *■ Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire f and a 
special fire ye have seen! The ashes of your wives and 
of your brothers cleave to your clothes. — Cast them up 
to Heaven, cry aloud, and quit yourselves like men ! 

Gent. He speaks God's truth! We are Heaven's 
justicers ! 
Our woes anoint us kings ! Peace — Hark again ! — 

Preacher. Therefore, as I said before — in the next 
place — It is written, that there shall be a two-edged- 
sword in the hand of -the saints. But the saints have 
but two swords — "Was there a sword or shield found 
among ten thousand in Israel? Then let Israel use 
his fists, say I the preacher ! For this man hath shed 
blood, and by man shall his blood be shed. Now 
behold an argument. — This man hath shed blood, even 
Conrad ; ergo, as he saith himself, ye, if ye are men, 
shall shed his blood. Doth he not himself say ergo ? 
Hath he not said ergo to the poor saints, to your sons 
and your daughters, whom he hath burned in the fire 
to Moloch? 'Ergo, thou art a heretic' — 'Ergo, thou 
shalt burn.' Is he not therefore convicted out of his 
own mouth ? " Arise therefore, be valiant — for this day 
he is delivered into your hand ! 

[Chanting heard in the distance.] 

Peasant. Hush ! here the psalm-singers come ! 
[Conrad enters on a mule, chanting the psalter, 
Gerard following. ,'] 

Con. My peace with you, my children ! 

1st Voice. Psalm us no psalms ; bless us no devil's 
blessings : 
Your balms will break our heads. 

[A murmur rises. 



scene in.] THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 171 

2nd Voice. You are welcome, sir ; we are a- waiting 
for you. 

3rd Voice, Has he been shriven to-day ? 

4th Voice. Where is your ergo, Master Conrad ? 
Faugh ! 
How both the fellows smell of smoke ! 

5th Voice. A strange leech he, to suck, and suck, 
and suck, 
And look no fatter for't ! 

Old Woman. Give me back my sons ! 

Old Man. Give me back the light of mine eyes, 
Mine only daughter ! 

My only one ! He hurled her over the cliffs ! 
Avenge me, lads, you are young ! 

4th Voice. "We will, we will : why smit'st him not, 
thou with the pole-axe ? 

3rd Voice. Nay, now, the first blow costs most, and 
heals last : 
Besides, the dog's a priest, at worst. 

0. Saym. Mass ! How the shaveling rascal stands 
at bay ! 
There's not a rogue of them dare face his eye ! 
True Domini canis ! 'Ware the bloodhound's teeth, curs! 

Preacher. What ! Are ye afraid ? The huntsman's 
here at last 
Without his whip ! Down with him, craven hounds ! 
I'll help ye to't. [Springs from the stone. 

Gent. Ay, down with him ! Mass, have these 
yelping boors 
More heart than I ? [Spurs his horse forward* 

Mob. A knight ! a champion ! 

Voice. He's not mortal man ! 

See how his eyes shine ! 'Tis the archangel ! 
St. Michael come to the rescue ! Ho ! St. Michael ! 
[He Iwmges at Conrad. Gerard turns the lance aside, 
and throws his arms round Conrad] 

Ger. My master ! my master ! The chariot of 
Israel and the horses thereof! 
Oh call down fire from Heaven ! 
H 2 



1 1 1 1 1 1 IT 



172 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. [act v. 

[A Peasant strikes down Gerard. Conrad, over 
the body.] 
Alas ! my son ! This blood snail cry for vengeance 
Before the throne of God ! 

Gent. And cry in vain ! 

Follow thy minion ! Join Folquet in hell ! 

[Bears Conrad down on his lance-point. 
Con. I am the vicar of the vicar of Christ : 
Who touches me, doth touch the Son of God. 

[The Mob close over him.] 
Oh God ! A martyr's crown ! Elizabeth ! [Dies. 



NOTES TO ACT i. 



The references, unless it be otherwise specified, are to 
the Eight Books concerning Saint Elizabeth, by 
Dietrich the Tfiuringian; in Basn age's Canisius, 
Vol. IV., p. 113, (Antwerp, 1725). 

Page 29. Cf. Lib. I. § 3. Dietrich is eloquent about her 
youthful inclination for holy places, and church doors, even 
when shut, and gives many real proofs of her 'sanctae 
indolis,' from the very cradle. 

P. 30. 'St. John's sworn maid.' Cf. Lib. I. §4. 'She 
chose by lot for her patron, St. John the protector of vir- 
ginity.' 

Ibid. 'Fit for my princess.' Cf. Lib. I. § 2. 'He sent 
with his daughter vessels of gold, silver baths, jewels, 
pillows all of silk. No such things, so precious or so many, 
were ever seen in Thuringen land.' 

Ibid. ' Most friendless.' Cf. Lib. I. §§ 5, 6. ' The 
courtiers used bitterly to insult her, &c. Her mother and 
sister-in-law, given to worldly pomp, differed from her ex- 
ceedingly ;' and much more concerning ' the persecutions 
which she endured patiently in youth.' 

P. 31. ' In one cradle.' Cf. Lib. I. § 2. ' The prin- 
cess was laid in the cradle of her boy-spouse,' and, says 
another, 'the infants embraced with smiles, from whence 
the bystanders drew a joyful omen of their future happi- 
ness.' 

Ibid. ' If thou love him.' Cf. Lib. I. § 6. ' The Lord 
by His hidden inspiration, so inclined towards her the 
heart of the prince, that in the solitude of secret and mutual 
love he used to speak sweetly to her heart, with kindness 
and consolation ; and was always wont, on returning home, 
to honour her with presents, and soothe her with embraces.' 



i u 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ) h i 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I I 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 II IT 



174 NOTES. 

It was their custom, says Dietrich, to the last to call each 
other in common conversation, 'Brother,' and 'Sister.' 

P. 32. 'To his charge.' Cf. Lib. I. § 7. 'Walter of 
Yarila, a good man, who, having been sent by the prince's 
father into Hungary, had brought the blessed Elizabeth into 
Thuringen land.' 

P. 33. 'The blind archer, Love.' For information 
about the pagan orientalism of the Troubadours, the blas- 
phemous bombast by which they provoked their persecution 
in Provence, and their influence on the courts of Europe, see 
SlSMONDI, Lit. Southern Europe, Cap. III. — YI. 

P. 35. ' Stadings.' The Stadings, according to Fleury, 
in a.d. 1233, were certain unruly fen-men, who refused to 
pay tithes, committed great cruelties on religious of both 
sexes, worshipped, or were said to worship, a black cat, &c, 
considered the devil as a. very ill-used personage, and the 
rightful lord of themselves and the world, and were of the 
most profligate morals. An impartial and philosophic in- 
vestigation of this and other early continental heresies, is 
much wanted. 

P. 45. 'All gold.' Cf. Lib. I. § 7. For Walter's in- 
terference and Lewis's answer, which I have paraphrased. 

P. 46. 'Is crowned with thorns.' Cf. Lib. I. § 5, for 
this anecdote and her defence, which I nave in like manner 
paraphrased. 

P. 47. ' Their pardon.' Cf. Lib. I. § 3, for this quaint 
method of self-humiliation. 

Ibid. 'You -know your place.' Cf. Lib. I. § 6. 'The 
vassals and relations of her betrothed persecuted her openly, 
and plotted to send her back to her father divorced * * 
* * Sophia also did all she could to place her in a con- 
vent. * * * * She delighted in the company of maids 
and servants, so that Sophia used to say sneeringly to her, 
" You should have been counted among the slaves who 
drudge, and not among the princes who rule." ' 

P. 49. ' Childish laughter.' Cf. Lib. I. § 7. ' The 
holy maiden receiving the mirror, showed her joy by de- 
lighted laughter:' and again, II. § 8. 'They loved each 
other in the charity of the Lord, to a degree beyond all 
belief.' 



NOTES. 175 

P. 49. ■ A crystal clear.' Cf. Lib. I. § 7. 

P. 51. 'Our fairest bride.' Cf. Lib. I. § 8. 'No one 
henceforth dared oppose the marriage by word or plot,' 
* * * • and all mouths were stopped.' 



NOTES TO ACT II. 

P. 53; p. 54; p. 55; p. ib. Cf. Lib. II. §§ 1, 5, 11, 
et passim. 

Hitherto my notes have been a careful selection of the few 
grains of characteristic fact which I could find among Die- 
trich's lengthy professional reflections; but the chapter on 
which this scene is founded is remarkable enough to be given 
whole, and as I have a long-standing friendship for the good 
old monk, who is full of honest naivete and deep-hearted 
sympathy, and have no wish to disgust all my readers with 
him, I shall give it for the most part untranslated. In the 
meantime, those who may be shocked at certain expressions 
in this poem, borrowed from the Romish devotional school, 
may verify my language at the Romish booksellers', who 
find just now a rapidly increasing sale for such ware. And 
is it not, after all, a hopeful sign for the age, that even the 
most questionable literary tastes must now-a-days ally 
themselves with religion — that the hot-bed imaginations 
which used to batten on Rousseau and Byron, have now 
risen at least as high as the Vies des Saints, and St. Fran- 
cois de Sales ' Philothea ? The truth is, that in such a time 
as this, in the dawn of an age of faith, whose future mag- 
nificence we may surely prognosticate from the slowness and 
complexity of its self-developing process, spiritual ' Wer- 
terism,' among other strange prolusions, must have its place. 
The emotions and the imaginations will assert their just 
right to be fed — by foul means, if not by fair; and even self- 
torture will have charms, after the utter dryness and life-in- 
death of mere ecclesiastical pedantry. It is good, mournful 
though it be, that a few, even by gorging themselves with 
poison, should indicate the rise of a spiritual hunger — if we 
do but take their fate as a warning to provide wholesome 
food before the new craving has extended itself to the many. 



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176 NOTES. 

It is good that religion should have its Werterism, in order 
that hereafter Werterism may have its religion . But to my 
quotations — wherein the reader will judge how difficult it 
has been for me to satisfy at once the delicacy of the English 
mind, and that historic truth which the highest art demands, 

• Erat inter eos honorabile connubium, et thorus immacu- 
latus, non in ardore libidinis, sed in conjugalis sanctimoniae 
castitate. For the holy maiden, as soon as she was married, 
began to macerate her flesh with many watchings, rising 
every night to pray ; her husband sometimes sleeping, some- 
times conniving at her, often begging her in compassion to 
her delicacy, not to afflict herself indiscreetly, often sup- 
porting her with his hand, when she prayed. (' And,' says 
another of her biographers, ; being taught by her to pray 
with her.') Great, truly, was the devotion of this young girl, 
who rising from the bed of her carnal husband, sought 
Christ, whom she loved as the true husband of her soul. 

1 Nor certainly was there less faith in the husband who 
did not oppose such and so great a wife, but rather favoured 
her, and tempered her fervour with over -kind prudence. 
Affected, therefore, by the sweetness of this modest love, and 
mutual society, they could not bear to be separated for any 
length of time or distance. The lady therefore frequently 
followed her husband through rough roads, and no small 
distances, and severe wind and weather, led rather by emo- 
tions of sincerity than of carnality : for the chaste presence of 
a modest husband offered no obstacle to that devout spouse in the 
way of praying, watching, or otherwise doing good.'' 

Then follows the story of her nurse waking Lewis instead 
of her, and Lewis's easy good-nature about this, as about 
every other event of life. 'And so, after these unwearied 
watchings, it often happened that praying for an excessive 
length of time, she fell asleep on a mat beside her husband's 
bed, and being reproved for it by her maidens, answered, — 
" Though I cannot always pray, yet I can do violence to my 
own flesh by tearing myself in the meantime from my 
couch." ' 

1 Fugiebat oblectamenta carnalia, et ideo stratum molli- 
orem, et viri contubernium secretissiinum, quantum licuit, de- 
clinavit. Quern guamvis prcecordialis amoris affectu diligeret, 
querulabatur tamen dolens, quod virginalis decorem fibris non 
meruit conservare. Castigabat etiam plagis multis, et lace- 
rabat diris verberibus carnem puella innocens et pudica. 






NOTES. 177 

* In principio quidem diebus quadragesimse, sext'sque 
feriis aliis occultas solebat accipere disciplinas, laetara coram 
hominibtis se ostentants. Post verb convalescens et proficiens 
in gratia, deserto dilecti thoro surgens, fecit se in secreto 
cubiculo per ancillarum manus graviter saepissime verberari, 
ad lecturaque mariti re versa hilarem se exhibuit et jocun- 
dam. 

' Vere felices conjuges, in quorum consortio tanta mun- 
ditia, in colloquio pudicitia reperta est. In quibus amor 
Christi concupiscentiam extinxit, devotio refrenavit petulan- 
tiam, fervor spirit us excussit somnolentia m, oratio tutavit 
conscientiam, charitas benefaciendi facultatem tribuit et 
laetitiam !' 

P. 66. 'In every scruple.' Cf. Lib. III. § 9, how 
Lewis ' consented that Elizabeth his wife should make a vow 
of obedience and continence at the will of the said Conrad, 
salvd Jure matrimonii.' 

P. 67. 'The open street.' Cf. Lib. II. § 11. ' On the 
Rogation days, when certain persons doing contrary to the 
decrees of the saints are decorated with precious and luxu- 
rious garments, the Princess, dressed in serge and bare- 
footed, used to follow most devoutly the Procession of the 
cross and the relics of the Saints, and place herself always 
at sermon among the poorest women, " knowing,"' says 
Dietrich, "that seeds cast into the valleys spring up into 
the richest crop of corn." ' 

P. 68. 'The poor of Christ.' Cf. Lib. II. §§ 6, 11, et 
passim. Elizabeth's labours among the poor are too well 
known throughout one-half at least of Christendom, where 
she is, par excellence, the patron of the poor, to need quota- 
tions. 

P. 69. 'I'll be thy pupil.' Cf. Lib. II. § 4. 'She 
used also, by words and examples, to oblige the worldly 
ladies who came to her to give up the vanity of the world, 
at least in some one particular.' 

P. 70. 'Conrad enters.' Cf. Lib. III. § 9, where 
this story of the disobeyed message and the punishment 
inflicted by Conrad for it, is told word for word. 

P. 74. * Peaceable come by.' Cf. Lib. II. § 6. 
Ibid. 'Bond slaves.' Cf. Note 11. 
H3 



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llli rill I lilt 



178 NOTES. 

P. 77. 'Elizabeth passes.' Cf. Lib. II. § 5. 'This 
most Christian mother, impletis purgationis sues diebus, 
used to dress herself in serge, and taking in her arms her 
new-born child, used to go forth secretly barefooted by the 
difficult descent from the castle by a rough and rocky road 
to a remote church, carrying her infant in her own arms, 
after the example of the Virgin Mother, and offering him 
upon the altar to the Lord with a taper' (and with gold, 
says another biographer). 

P. 79. 'Give us bread.' Cf. Lib. III. § 6. 'A.D. 
1225, while the Landgrave was gone to Italy to the Em- 
peror, a severe famine arose throughout all Almaine ; and 
lasting for nearly two years, destroyed many with hunger. 
Then Elizabeth, moved with compassion for the miserable, 
collected all the corn from her granaries, and distributed it 
as alms for the poor. She also built a hospital at the foot 
of the Wartburg, wherein she placed all those who could 
not wait for the general distribution. * * * She sold 
her own ornaments to feed the members of Christ. * * * 
Cuidam misero lac desideranti, ad mulgendum se prsebuit !' 
—See p. 162. 

P. 88. 'Ladies' tenderness.' Cf. Lib. III. § 8. 'When 
the courtiers and stewards complained on his return of the 
Lady Elizabeth's too great extravagance in alms-giving, 
" Let her alone," quoth he, " to do good, and to give what- 
ever she will for God's sake, only keep Wartburg and 
Neuenburg in my hands.' " 

P. 95. 'A crusader's cross.' Cf. Lib. IV. § 1. 'In 
the year 12 2 7. there was a general " Passagium" to the holy 
land, in which Frederick the Emperor also crossed the seas,' 
(or rather did not cross, says Heinrich Stero, in his annals, 
but having got as far as Sicily, came back again, — miser- 
ably disappointing and breaking up the expedition, whereof 
the greater part died at the various ports, — and was ex- 
communicated for so doing) ; ' and Lewis, landgrave of the 
Thuringians, took the cross likewise in the name of Jesus 
Chirst, and * * * did not immediately fix the badge 
which he had received to his garment, as the manner is, lest 
his wife, who loved him with the most tender affection, seeing 
this, should be anxious and disturfted, * * * but she 
found it while turning over his purse and fainted, struck 
down with a wonderful consternation.' 



NOTES. 179 

P. 98. ' I must be gone.' Cf. Lib. IV. § 2. A chap- 
ter in which Dietrich rises into a truly noble and pathetic 
strain. * Coming to Schmalcald,' he says, ' Lewis found his 
dearest friends, whom he had ordered to meet him there, 
not wishing to depart without taking leave of them.' 

Then follows Dietrich's only poetic attempt, which Bas- 
nage calls a ' carmen ineptum, foolish ballad,' and most 
unfairly, as all readers should say, if I had any hope of 
doing justice in a translation to this genial fragment of an 
old dramatic ballad, and its simple objectivity, as of a 
writer so impressed (like all true Teutonic poets in those 
earnest days), with the pathos and greatness of his subject, 
that he never tries to 'improve' it by reflections, and 
preaching at his readers, but thinks it enough, just to tell 
his story, sure that it will speak for itself to all hearts. 

Quibus valefaciens cum moerore 
Commisit suis fratribus natos cum uxore : 
Matremque deosculatos filiali more, 
Vix earn alloquitur cordis prce dolor e, 
Illis mota viscera, corda tremuerunt, 
Dum alter in alterius colla irruerunt, 
Expetentes oscula, quae vix receperunt 
Propter multitudines, quce eos compresserunt. 
Mater tenens filium, uxor que maritum. 
In diversa pertrahunt, et tenent invitum, 
Fratres cum militibus velut compeditum 
Stringunt, nee discedere sinunt expeditum. 
Erat in exercitu maximus tumultus, 
Cum carorum cernerent alternari vultus. 
Flebant omnes pariter, senex et adultus, 
Turbae cum militibus, cultus et incultus. 
Eja! Quis non plangeret, cum videretflentes 
Tot honestos nobiles, tarn diversas gentes, 
Cum Thuringis Saxones illuc venientes, 
Ut viderent socios suos abscedentes. 
Amico luctamine cuncti certavere, 
Quis eum diutius posset retinere ; 
Quidam collo brachiis, quidam inhcesere 
Vestibus, nee poterat cuiquam respondere. 
Tandem se de manibus eximens suorem 
Magnatorum socius et peregrinorum, 
Admixtus tandem coeiui cruce signatorum 
Non visurus amplius terrain Thuringoi'um ! 



wrmmrmmmmmm\\\m\\\\\\ \ 



180 NOTES. 

Surely there is a heart of flesh in the old monk which, 
when warmed by a really healthy subject, can toss aside 
Scripture-parodies, and professional Stoic-sentiment, and 
describe with such life and pathos, like any eye-witness, a 
scene which occurred, in fact, two years before his birth. 

•And thus this Prince of Peace,' he continues, 'mounting 
his horse with many knights, &c. * * * * about the 
end of the month of June, set forth in the name of the 
Lord, praising him in heart and voice, and weeping and 
singing were heard side by side. And close by followed, 
with saddest heart, that most faithful lady after her sweetest 
prince, her most loving spouse, never, alas ! to behold him 
more. And when she was going to return, the force of love 
and the agony of separation forced her on with him one 
day's journey : and yet that did not suffice. She went on, 
still unable to bear the parting, another full day's journey. 
* * * * At last they part, at the exhortations of Ru- 
dolf the Cupbearer. What groans, think you, what sobs, 
what struggles, and yearnings of the heart must there have 
been ? Yet they part, and go on their way. * * * * 
The Lord went forth exulting, as a giant to run his course ; 
the Lady returned lamenting, as a widow, and tears were on 
her cheeks. Then putting off the garments of joy, she took 
the dress of widowhood. The mistress of nations, sitting 
alone, she turned herself utterly to God — to her former 
good works, adding better ones.' 

Their children were, ' Hermann, who became Landgraf ; 
a daughter, who married the Duke of Brabant ; another, 
who remaining in virginity, became a nun of Aldenburg, of 
which place she is lady abbess until this day.' 



NOTES TO ACT III. 

P. 102. 'On the freezing stone.' Cf. Lib. II. § 5. 'In 
the absence of her husband she used to lay aside her gay 
garments, conducted herself devoutly as a widow, and 
waited for the return of her beloved, passing her nights in 
watchings, genuflexions, prayers, and disciplines.' And 
again, Lib. IV. § 3, just quoted. 



NOTES. 181 

I\ 104. 'The will of God.' Cf.Lib.IV.§6. 'Themother- 
in-law said to her daughter-in-law, " Be brave, my beloved 
daughter; nor be disturbed at that which hath happened by 
divine ordinance to thy husband, my son." Whereto she an- 
swered boldly, " If my brother is captive, he can be freed by 
the help of God and our friends." " He is dead," quoth the 
other. Then she, clasping her hands upon her knees, 
" The world is dead to me, and all that is pleasant in the 
world." Having said this, suddenly springing up with tears, 
she rushed swiftly through the whole length of the palace, 
and being entirely beside herself, would have run on to the 
world's end, usque qua que, if a wall had not stopped her ; 
and others coming up, led her away from the wall to which 
she had clung.* 

Ibid. 'Yon lion's rage.' Cf. Lib. III. § 2. 'There 
was a certain lion in the court of the Prince ; and it came 
to pass on a time, that rising from his bed in the morning, 
and crossing the court dressed only in his gown and slip- 
pers, he met this lion loose and raging against him. He 
thereon threatened the beast with his raised fist, and rated 
it manfully, till laying aside its fierceness, it lay down at 
the knight's feet, and fawned on him, wagging its tail.' 
So Dietrich. 

P. 108; p. 112 Cf. Lib.IV. § 7. 

' Now shortly after the news of Lewis's death, certain 
vassals of her late husband (with Henry, her brother-in-law,) 
cast her out of the castle and of all her possessions. 

* * * * She took refuge that night in a certain tavern, 

* * * * and went at midnight to the matins of the 
"Minor Brothers." * * * * And when no one dare 
give her lodging, took refuge in the church. * * * * 
And when her little ones were brought to her from the 
castle, amid most bitter frost, she knew not where to lay 
their heads. * * * * She entered a priest's house, and 
fed her family miserably enough, by pawning what she had. 
There was in that town an enemy of hers, having a roomy 
house. * * * * Whither she entered at his bidding, 
and was forced to dwell with her whole family in a very 
narrow space, * * * * her host and hostess heaped 
her with annoyances and spite. She therefore bade them 
farewell, saying, "I would willingly thank mankind,, if they 
would give me any reason for so doing." So she returned 
to her former filthy cell,' 



TfWWTffWWIIIIl Mn il l l H l l l i ll l l lM ll l l 



182 NOTES. 

P. 108. 'White as whales' bone' {i.e. the tooth of the 
narwhal) ; a common simile in the older poets. 

P. 113. 'The nuns of Kitzingen.' Cf. Lib. V. § 1. 
' After this, the noble Lady the Abbess of Kitzingen, Eliza- 
beth's aunt according to the flesh, brought her away 
honourably to Eckembert, Lord Bishop of Bamberg.' 

P. 115. ' Aged crone/ Cf. Lib. IY. §, where this whole 
story is related word for word. 

P. 118. 'I'd mar this face.' Cf. Lib. V. § 1. ■ "If I could 
not," said she, " escape by any other means, I would with 
my own hands cut off my nose, that so every man might 
loath me when so foully disfigured." ' 

P. 119. ' Botenstain.' Cf. ibid. * The Bishop commanded 
that she should be taken to Botenstain with her maids, until 
he should give her away in marriage.' 

P. 120. ' Bear children.' Ibid. 'The venerable man, 
knowing that the apostle says, "I will that the younger 
widows marry, and bear children," thought of giving her in 
marriage to some one — an intention which she perceived. 
And protested on the strength of her " votum continentia." ' 

P. 122. 'The tented field.' All records of the worthy 
Bishop on which I have fallen, describe him as ' virum mi- 
litia strenuissimum,' — a mighty man of war. — We read of 
him, in Stero of Altaich's Chronicle, a.d. 1232, making war 
on the Duke of Carinthia, destroying many of his castles, 
and laying waste a great part of his land ; and next year, 
being seized by some bailiff of the Duke's, and keeping that 
Lent in durance vile. In a.d, 1237, he was left by the 
Emperor as 'vir magnanimus et bellicosus,' in charge of 
Austria, during the troubles with Duke Frederick ; and died 
in 1240. 

P. 123 'Lewis's bones.' Cf. Lib. Y. § 3. 

P. 127. ' I thank thee.' Cf. Lib. Y. § 4. ' What agony 
and love there was then in her heart, He alone can tell, who 
knows the hearts of all the sons of men. I believe that her 
grief was renewed, and all her bones trembhd, when she 
saw the bones of her beloved separated one from, another 
(the corpse had been dug up at Cftranto, and boiled). But 
though absorbed in so great a woe, at last she remembered 



NOTES. 183 

God, and recovering her spirit, said' — (Her words I have 
paraphrased as closely as possible.) 

P. 127. ' The close hard by.' Cf. Lib. V. § 4. 



NOTES TO ACT IV. 

P. 129. • Your self-imposed vows.' Cf. Lib. IV. § 1. 'On 
Good Friday, when the altars were exhibited bare in remem- 
brance of the Saviour who hung bare on the cross for us, she 
went into a certain chapel, and in the presence of Master 
Conrad, and certain Franciscan brothers, laying her holy 
hands on the bare altar, renounced her own will, her parents, 
children, relations, "Et omnibus hujus modi pompis," all 
pomps of this kind (a misprint, one hopes, for mundi), in 
imitation of Christ; and "omnino se exuit et nudavit," 
stripped herself utterly, naked to follow Him naked, in the 
steps of poverty.' 

P. 132. ' All worldly goods.' A paraphrase of her own 
words. 

P. 133. ' Thine own needs.' * But when she was going to 
renounce her possessions also, the prudent Conrad stopped 
her.' The reflections which follow are Dietrich's own. 

P. 134. ' The likeness of the fiend,' &c. I have put this 
daring expression into Conrad's mouth, as the ideal outcome 
of the teaching of Conrad's age on this point — and of much 
teaching also, which miscalls itself protestant, in our own 
age. The doctrine is not, of course, to be found totidem 
verbis in the formularies of any sect — yet almost all sects 
preach it, and quote Scripture for it as boldly as Conrad — 
the Romish Saint alone carries it honestly out into practice. 

P. 135. ' With pine boughs.' Cf. Lib. VI. § 2. « Entering 
a certain desolate court, she betook herself, " sub gradu cu- 
jusdam caminatse," to the projection of a certain furnace, 
where she roofed herself in with boughs. * * * * In 
the meantime, in the town of Marpurg, was built for her a 
humble cottage of clay and timber,' 

Ibid. « Count Pama.' Cf. Lib. VI. § 6. 



hiiiiiiuiiiiiiiii*iiiii.i» 



ll 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 n 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 m i m i7ir 



184 NOTES. 

P. 136. * Isentrudis and Guta.' Cf. Lib. VII. § 4. 'Now 
Conrad, as a prudent man, perceiving that this disciple of 
Christ wished to arrive at the highest pitch of perfection, 
studied to remove all which he thought would retard her, 
* * * * and therefore drove from her all those of her 
former household in whom she used to solace or delight her- 
self. Thus the holy priest deprived this servant of God of 
all society, that so the constancy of her obedience might be- 
come known, and occasion might be given to her for clinging 
to God alone.' 

P. 137. 'A leprous boy.' Cf. Lib. VI. § 8. 

She had several of these proteges, successively, whose dis- 
eases are too disgusting to be specified, on whom she lavished 
the most menial cares. All the other stories of her benevo- 
lence which occur in these two pages are related by Dietrich. 

Ibid. ' Mighty to save.' Cf. Lib. VII. § 7. Where we 
read, amongst other matters, how the objects of her prayers 
used to become while she was speaking so intensely hot, that 
they not only smoked, and nearly melted, but burnt the 
fingers of those who touched them : from whence Dietrich 
bids us ' learn with what an ardour of charity she used to 
burn, who would dry up with her heat the flow of worldly de- 
sire, and inflame to the love of eternity.' 

P. 139. ' Lands and titles.' Cf. Lib. V. §§ 7, 8. 

P. 140. ' Spinning wool.' Cf. Lib. VI. § 6. 'And crossing 
himself for wonder, the Count Pama cried out and said, 
" Was it ever seen to this day that a king's daughter should 
spin wool?" "All his messages from her father," says 
Dietrich, " were of no avail." * 

P. 144. 'To do her penance.' Cf. Lib. VII. § 4. 'Now, 
he had placed with her certain austere women, from whom 
she endured much oppression patiently for Christ's sake, 
who, watching her rigidly, frequently reported her to her 
master for having transgressed her obedience, in giving 
something to the poor, or begging others to give. And 
when thus accused, she often received many blows from her 
master, insomuch that he used to strike her in the face 
which she earnestly desired to endure patiently in memory 
of the stripes of the Lord.' 

P. 146. ' That she dared not.' Cf. Lib. VII. § 4. ' When 



NOTES. 185 

her most intimate friends, Isentrudis and Guta,' (whom 
another account describes as in great poverty,) ' came to see 
her, she dared not give them anything, even for food, nor 
without special licence, salute them.' 

P. 146. ■ To bear within us.' ' Seeing in the church of 
certain monks who " professed poverty," images sumptuously 
gilt, she said to about twenty-four of them, " You had better 
to have spent this money on your own food and clothes, for 
we ought to have the reality of these images written in our 
hearts." And if any one mentioned a beautiful image before 
her, she used to say, " I have no need of such an image. I 
carry the thing itself in my bosom.'" 

Ibid. 'Even on her bed.' Cf. Lib. VI. §§ 5, 6. 

P. 148. ' My mother rose.' Cf. Lib. YI. § 8. * Her mother, 
who had been long ago' (when Elizabeth was nine years old) 
1 miserably slain by the Hungarians, appeared to her in her 
dreams upon her knees, and said, " My beloved child ! pray 
for the agonies which I suffer ; for thou canst." Elizabeth 
waking, prayed earnestly, and fa ling asleep again, her mother 
appeared to her and told her that she was freed, and that 
Elizabeth's prayers would hereafter benefit all who invoked 
her.' Of the causes of her mother's murder, the less that is 
said, the better — but the prudent letter which the Bishop of 
Gran sent back when asked to join in the conspiracy against 
her, is worthy notice. ' Reginam occidere nolite timere bonum 
est. Si omnes consentiunt ego non contradico * To be read as 
a full consent, or as a flat refusal, according to the success 
of the plot. 

P. 149. ' Any living soul.' Dietrich has much on this point, 
headed, 'How master Conrad exercised Saint Elizabeth in 
the breaking of her own will. * * * * And at last 
forbad her entirely to give alms ; whereon she employed 
herself in washing lepers an$ other infirm folk. In the 
meantime she was languishing, and inwardly tortured with 
emotions of compassion.' 

I may here say, that in representing Elizabeth's early 
death as accelerated by a ' broken heart,' I have, I believe, 
told the truth, though I find no hint of anything of the kind 
in Dietrich. The religious public of a petty town in the 13th 
century round the death-bed of a royal saint would of course 
treasure up most carefully all incidents connected with her 



ii miih ii n iiiiiiiiiiii 



186 NOTES. 

latter days ; but they would hardly record sentiments or ex- 
pressions which might seem to their notions to derogate in 
any way from her saintship. Dietrich, too, looking at the 
subject as a monk and not as a man, would consider it just 
as much his duty to make her death-scene rapturous, as to 
make both her life and her tomb miraculous. I have com- 
posed these last scenes in the belief that Elizabeth and all 
her compeers will be recognised as real saints, in proportion 
as they are felt to have been real men aud women. 

P. 151. 'Eructate sweet doctrine.' The expressions are 
Dietrich's own. 

Ibid. < In her coffin get.' Cf. Lib. VIII. § 1. 

Ibid. < So she said.' Cf. ibid. 

Ibid. « The poor of Christ.' * She begged her master to 
distribute all to the poor, except a worthless tunic in which 
she wished to be buried. She made no will : she would have 
no heir besides Christ,' (i.e., the poor.) 

P. 152, &c. ' Martha and their brother,' &c. 

I have compressed the events of several days into one in 
this scene. I give Dietrich's own account, omitting his 
reflections. 

■ When she had been ill twelve days and more, one of her 
maids sitting by her bed, heard in her throat a very sweet 
sound, * * * * and saying, " Oh, my mistress, how 
sweetly thou didst sing !" she answered, " I tell thee, I heard a 
little bird between me and the wall sing merrily ; who with 
his sweet song so stirred me up, that I could not but sing 
myself." ' 

Again § 3. « The last day she remained till evening 
most devout, having been made partaker of the celestial 
table, and inebriated with that most pure blood of life, which 
is Christ. The word of truth was continually on her lips, 
and opening her mouth of wisdom, she spake of the best 
things, which she had heard in sermons ; eructating from 
her heart good words, and the law of clemency was heard 
on her tongue. She told from the abundance of her heart 
how the Lord Jesus condescended to console Mary and 
Martha, at the raising again of their brother Lazarus, and 
then, speaking of His weeping with them over the dead, she 
eructated the memory of the abundance of. the Lord's sweet- 






NOTES. 187 

ness, affectu et effectu, (in feeling and expression ?) Certain 
religious persons who were present, hearing these words, 
fired with devotion, by the grace which filled her lips, 
melted into tears. To whom the saint of God now dying, 
recalled the sweet words of her Lord as he went to death, 
saying, " Daughters of Jerusalem," &c. Having said this 
she was silent. A wonderful thing. Then most sweet 
voices were heard in her throat, without any motion of her 
lips ; and she asked of those round " Did ye not hear some 
singing with me ?" " Whereon none of the faithful are 
allowed to doubt," says Dietrich, " when she herself heard 
the harmony of the heavenly hosts, &c. &c." * * * * 
From that time to twilight she lay, as if exultant and 
jubilant, showing signs of remarkable devotion, till the crow- 
ing of the cock. Then, as if secure in the Lord, she said to 
the bystanders " What should we do, if the fiend showed 
himself to us?" And shortly afterwards with a loud and 
clear voice, " Fly ! fly !" as if repelling the daemon.' 

■ At the cock-crow she said, " Here is the hour, in which 
the Virgin brought forth the child Jesus and laid him in a 
manger. * * * * Let us talk of him, and of that new 
star which he created by his omnipotence, which never 
before was seen." " For these" (says Montanus in her 
name) " are the venerable mysteries of our faith, our richest 
blessings, our fairest ornaments : in these all the reason of 
our hope flourishes, faith grows, charity burns." ' 

The novelty of the style and matter will, I hope, excuse 
its prolixity with most readers. If not, I have still my 
reasons for inserting the greater part of this chapter. 

P. 154. 'I demand it.' How far I am justified in putting 
such fears into her mouth, the reader may judge. Cf. Lib. 
VIII. § 5. ' The devotion of the people demanding it, her 
body was left unburied till the fourth day in the midst of a 
multitude.' * * * * 

1 The flesh,' says Dietrich, ' had the tenderness of a living 
body, and was easily moved hither and thither, at the will 
of those who handled it. * '* * * And many, sublime 
in the valour of their faith, tore off the hair of her head, and 
the nails of her fingers, (" even the tips of her ears, et mamil- 
larum papilla*,* says untranslateably Montanus of Spire,) 
and kept them as relics.' The reference relating to the 
pictures of her disciplines, and the effect which they produced 
on the crowd, I have unfortunately lost. 



ffffTTTTTTfmill H I I I . IIII I I I IIII I IIIII H II ft 



188 NOTES, 

P. 155. ' And yet no pain.' Cf. Lib. VIII. § 4. * She 
said, " Though I am -weak, I feel no disease or pain," and so 
through that whole day and night, as hath been said, having 
been elevated with most holy affections of mind towards 
God, and inflamed in spirit with most divine utterances and 
conversations, at length she rested from jubilating, and 
inclining her head as if falling into a sweet sleep, expired.' 



NOTES TO ACT Y. 

P. 156. ' Canonization.' Cf. Lib. VIII. § 10. If I have 
in the last scene been guilty of a small anachronism, I have 
in this, been guilty of a great one. Conrad was of course a 
prime means of Elizabeth's canonization, and, as Dietrich, 
and his own ' Letter to Pope Gregory the ISlnth' show, col- 
lected, and pressed on the notice of the Archbishop of Maintz, 
the miraculous statements necessary for that honour. But 
he died two years before the actual publication of her 
canonization. It appeared to me, that by following the 
exact facts, I must either lose sight of the final triumph, 
which connects my heroine for ever with Germany and 
all Romish Christendom, and is the very culmination of the 
whole story; or relinquish my only opportunity of doing 
Conrad justice, by exhibiting the remaining side of his 
character. 

I am afraid that I have erred, and that the most strict 
historic truth would have coincided, as usual, with the 
highest artistic effect, while it would have only corroborated 
the moral of my poem, supposing that there is one". But I 
was fettered by the poverty of my own imagination, and 
1 do manus lectoribus.' 

P. 156. ' Third Minors.' The order of the Third Minors 
of St. Francis of Assisi, was an invention of the comprehen- 
sive mind of that truly great man, by which ' worldlings' 
were enabled to participate in the spiritual advantages of 
the Franciscan rule and discipline, .without neglect or sus- 
pension of their civic and family duties. But it was an 
institution too enlightened for its age ; and family and civic 
ties were destined for a far nobler consecration. The order 



NOTES. 189 

was persecuted, and all but exterminated, by the jealousy 
of the Regular Monks, not, it seems, without papal conniv- 
ance. Within a few years after its foundation it numbered 
amongst its members the noblest knights and ladies of 
Christendom, St. Louis of France among the number. 

P. 157. ' Lest he fall.' Cf. Fleury Eccl. Annals, in Anno 
1233. ' Doctor Conrad of Marpurg, the King Henry, son 
of the Emperor Frederick, &c, called an assembly at 
Mayence to examine persons accused as heretics. Among 
whom the Count of Saym demanded a delay to justify him- 
self. As for the others who did not appear, Conrad gave 
the cross to those who would take up arms against them. 
At which these supposed heretics were so irritated, that on 
his return they lay in wait for him near Marpurg, and killed 
him with brother Gerard of the order of Minors, a holy man. 
Conrad was accused of precipitation in his judgments, 
and of having burned trop legerement under pretext of 
heresy, many noble and not noble, monks, nuns, burghers, 
and peasants. For he had them executed the same day 
that they were accused, without allowing any appeal. ' 

P. 159. ' The Kaiser.' Cf. Lib. VIII. § 12, for a list of 
the worthies present. 

P. 160. ■ A Zingar wizard.' Cf. Lib. I. § 1. The Ma- 
gician's name was Klingsohr. He has been introduced by 
Novalis into his novel of Heinrich Von Ofterdingen, as pre- 
sent at the famous contest of the Minnesingers on the 
Wartburg. Here is Dietrich's account : — 

1 There were in those days in the Landgrave's court six 
knights, nobles, &c. &c, " cantilenarum confectores summi," 
song-wrights of the highest excellence,' (either one of them 
or Klingsohr himself, was the author of the Nibelungen-lied, 
and the Helden-buch). 

■ Now there dwelt then in the parts of Hungary, in the 
land which is called the " Seven Castles," a certain rich 
nobleman, worth 3000 marks a year, a philosopher, prac- 
tised from his youth in secular literature, but nevertheless 
learned in the sciences of Necromancy and Astronomy. 
This master Klingsohr was sent for by the Prince to judge 
between the songs of these knights aforesaid. Who, before 
he was introduced to the Landgrave, sitting one night in 
Eisenach, in the court of his lodging, looked very earnestly 



lllllllS Illl. ■■!■■<... 



mn 



1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ■ 1 1 1 



j 



190 NOTES. 

upon the stars ; and being asked if he had perceived any 
secrets, " Know that this night is born a daughter to the 
King of Hungary, who shall be called Elizabeth, and shall 
be a saint, and shall be given to wife to the son of this 
prince; in the fame of whose sanctity all the earth shall 
exult and be exalted." 

* See ! — He who by Balaam the wizard foretold the mys- 
tery of his own incarnation, himself foretold by this wizard 
the name and birth of his fore-chosen handmaid Elizabeth.' 
(A comparison of which Basnage says, that he cannot deny 
it to be intolerable.) I am not bound to explain all strange 
stories, but considering who and whence Klingsohr was, and 
the fact that the treaty of espousals took place a few months 
afterwards, * adhuc sugens ubera desponsata est ;' it is not 
impossible that King Andrew and his sage vassal may have 
had some previous conversation on the destination of the 
unborn princess. 

P. 160. ' A robe.'' Cf. Lib. II. § 9, for this story ; on 
which Dietrich observes, ' Thus did her Heavenly Father 
clothe his lily Elizabeth, as Solomon in all his glory could 
not do.' 

Ibid. ' The incarnate Son.' This story is told, I think, 
by Surias, and has been introduced, with an illustration by 
a German artist of the highest note, into a modern prose 
biography of this saint. (I have omitted much more of the 
same kind.) 

P. 161. * Sainthood's palm.' Cf. Lib. VIII. §§ 7, 8, 9. 
' While to declare the merits of his handmaid Elizabeth, in 
the place where her body rested, Almighty God was thus 
multiplying the badges of her virtues, (i. e. miracles,) two 
altars were built in her praise in that chapel, which while 
Siegfried, Archbishop of Mayence, was consecrating, as he 
had evidently been commanded in a vision, at the prayers 
of that devout man master Conrad, preacher of the word of 
God ; the said preacher commanded all who had received 
any grace of healing from the merits of Elizabeth, to appear 
next day before the Archbishop and faithfully prove their 
assertions by witnesses. * * * * Then the Most Holy 
Father, Pope Gregory the Ninth, having made diligent 
examination of the miracles transmitted to him, trusting at 
the same time to mature and prudent counsels, and the 






NOTES. 



191 



Holy Spirit's providence, above all, so ordaining, his clemency- 
disposing, and his grace admonishing, decreed that the 
Blessed Elizabeth was to be written among the catalogue 
of the saints on earth, since in heaven she rejoices as written 
in the Book of Life.' * * * * 

Then follow four chapters, headed severally. 

§ 9. 'Of the solemn canonization of the Blessed Eliza- 
beth.' 

§ 10. 'Of the translation of the Blessed Elizabeth (and 
how the corpse when exposed diffused round a miraculous 
fragrance).' . 

§ 11. 'Of the desire of the people to see, embrace, and 
kiss (says Dietrich) those sacred bones, the organs of the 
Holy Spirit, from which flowed so many graces of sanctities.' 

§ 12. 'Of the sublime persons who were present, and their 
oblations.' 

§ 13. 'A consideration of the divine mercy about this 
matter.' 

* Behold ! she who despised the glory of the world, and 
refused the company of magnates, is magnificently honoured 
by the dignity of the Pontifical office, and th^. reverent care 
of Imperial Majesty. And she who seeking the lowest place 
in this life, sat on the ground, slept in the dust, is now raised 
on high, by the hands of Kings and Princes. * * * * It 
transcends all heights of temporal glory, to have been made 
like the saints in glory. For all the rich among the people 
" vultum ejus deprecantur," (pray for the light of her counte- 
nance,) and kings and princes offer gifts, magnates adore her, 
and all nations serve her. Xor without reason, for " she sold 
all and gave to the poor," and counting all her substance for 
nothing, bought for herself this priceless pearl of eternity." ' 
One would be sorry to believe that such utterly mean consi- 
derations of selfish vanity, expressing as they do an extreme 
respect for the very pomps and vanities which they praise the 
saints for despising, really went to the making of any saint, 
Romish or other. 

§ 14. 'Of the sacred oil which flowed from the bones of 
Elizabeth.' I subjoin the ' Epilogus.' 

' Moreover, even as the elect handmaid of God, the most 
blessed Elizabeth, had shone during her life with wonderful 
signs of her virtues, so since the day of her blessed departure 
up to the present time, she is resplendent through the various 
quarters of the world with illustrious prodigies of miracles, 






192 NOTES. 

the Divine power glorifying her. For to the blind, dumb, 
deaf, and lame, dropsical, possessed, and leprous, shipwrecked, 
and captives, " ipsius meritis," as a reward for her holy deeds, 
remedies are conferred. Also, to all diseases, necessities, and 
dangers, assistance is given. And, moreover, by the many 
corpses, "pitta sedecim" say sixt en, wonderfully raised to 
life by herself, becomes known to the faithful the magnifi- 
cence of the virtues of the Most High glorifying His saint. 
To that Most High be glory and honour for ever. Amen.' 

So ends D etrich's story. The reader has by this time, I 
hope, read enough to justify, in every sense, Conrad's ' A 
corpse or two was raised, they say, last week,' and much 
more of the funeral oration which I have put into his mouth. 

P. 161. ' Gallant gentleman.' Cf. Lib. VIII. § 6. 

P. 163. ■ Took the crown.' Cf. Lib. VIII. § 12. 

Ibid. The ' olive' and the ' pearl' are Dietrich's own 
figures. The others follow the method of scriptural inter- 
pretation, usual in the writers of that age. 

P. 171. ' Domini canes,' ' The Lord's hounds,' a punning 
sobriquet of the Dominican inquisitors, in allusion to their 
profession. 

P. 172. ■ Folquet,' Bishop of Toulouse, who had been in 
early life a Troubadour, distinguished himself by his ferocity 
and perfidy in the crusade against the Albigenses and Trou- 
badours, especially at the surrender of Toulouse, in company 
with his chief abettor, the infamous Simon de Montfort. He 
died AD. 1231. See SlSMONDI, Lit. of Southern Europe, 
Cap. VI. 



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